More than 2,000 LA County ballots printed, mailed without presidential race

Los Angeles County election officials are apologizing for a misprint of more than 2,000 ballots that omitted the presidential race.

Wednesday, October 7, 2020
More than 2,000 LA County ballots missing presidential race
Los Angeles County election officials are apologizing for a misprint of more than 2,000 ballots that omitted the presidential race.

WOODLAND HILLS, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Los Angeles County election officials are apologizing for a misprint of more than 2,000 ballots that omitted the presidential race.

The ballots were sent to voters in the Woodland Hills area.

Susan Kapitanoff says she noticed the omission as soon as she opened her ballot over the weekend.

"I immediately opened it to look at it and examine it and as I did I realized there was no place to vote for president," she recalled. "I called my husband over and we looked at it several times and there was no place to vote for president."

Susan says she contacted county voting officials.

"They very quickly came back with an explanation that it seemed to be a misprint."

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder office says it was a printing error, affecting about 2,100 ballots.

Registrar Dean Logan said: "We are now in the process of alerting all affected voters in this precinct of the error by robocall and email, and tomorrow morning we will be mailing out new, corrected ballots with a letter describing the error."

"We encourage all voters to discard the faulty ballot and fill-out and return the accurate one. If they have already filled out and mailed their original ballot, we will cancel their original ballot once their new ballot is received."

The issue also caught the attention of President Donald Trump who tweeted: "11,00 North Carolina residents get incorrect voter registration forms. 2000 LA County Voters received "faulty" Ballots, with NO WAY TO VOTE FOR PRESIDENT. Many others throughout USA. Here we go. This will be the most corrupt Election in American History!"

In a separate event, a woman in East Los Angeles says she saw a couple ballots misplaced, outside the mailbox near her apartment building.

"I saw a pile of mail and I was looking at it and I was like what is all this," she said. "And I take my shades off and put my glasses on and I couldn't believe it was ballots."

The registrar says the postal service should place ballots inside the mailbox. If they can't they should leave a notice for the resident to pick it up at the post office.

There are also protections in place, including signature matching technology, that would prevent anyone from using a ballot - other than the voter it was addressed to.