Ballot Fallout : Absentee Votes in Unlocked Room Spur Concern

A door to a warehouse holding thousands of uncounted absentee ballots was left unlocked Sunday, prompting an investigation by the registrar of voters office into whether any of them were missing or altered.

Election officials Monday were trying to determine who last used the door and when it was left unlocked. The security breach was discovered Sunday afternoon by a Times reporter who was checking the Santa Ana building for any progress in the absentee ballot count.

Registrar Donald F. Tanney said about 32,000 absentee ballots, which had been secured in a locked room until Thursday, had been left on the warehouse floor over the weekend in trays awaiting a final count today.

Tanney said the ballots were sealed and a quick perusal Monday did not reveal any tampering. But he acknowledged that it will be difficult to determine if any were taken.

“We had an estimate of the numbers of ballots based on what we thought were in the trays,” Tanney said. “It would be very hard to determine if any were taken because we did not have a (precise) count. However, there was no real way to tamper with them and leave them here, so I would presume that the only tampering that would occur would be for someone to steal them.”

Despite the acknowledged breach of security, Tanney said the ballots would not be invalidated.

“They were sealed and deserve to be counted,” he said.

Debra Seiler, chief of elections in the California secretary of state’s office, said there apparently are no regulations that would require ballots to be nullified unless they were found to be tampered with.

The security breach is the latest controversy stemming from Tuesday’s election.

Republican Party officials have acknowledged hiring uniformed security guards to monitor 20 heavily Latino Santa Ana polling places, drawing fire from Latino community leaders and the Democratic Party whose candidate, Christian F. (Rick) Thierbach, was losing by the narrowest of margins to Republican challenger Curt Pringle in the 72nd Assembly District. (Story in Part I, Page 1.)

Officials from both camps, concerned that the race’s outcome could be affected by the uncounted absentee ballots, said Monday that they were troubled by the security breach.

“That’s incredible. That’s frightening,” said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), who helped Thierbach with his campaign. “Even if that’s the way they normally have done their business, given all of this, you would think those ballots would be under lock and key. It’s outrageous they would be treated in such a careless manner. It throws into doubt the entire election. The registrar can’t guarantee the integrity of the ballots.”

Says He’s Concerned

Pringle said he, too, was concerned.

“The election process is so valuable, a process that we entrust to the registrar of voters. If that process has been breached, it is unfortunate, very unfortunate,” he said.

Assistant Registrar Rosalind Lever said election workers were last known to have been in the building on Saturday when the ballots were placed in trays for sorting.

Lever said she was one of the last to leave the building about 3 p.m. and checked doors to make sure they were locked.

“I remember checking because there were kids around the building skateboarding, and I wanted to make sure everything was secure,” she said.

Tanney said officials were checking to determine if office custodians may have entered the building late Saturday or Sunday and left the door unlocked.

The door, on the north side of the building, opens onto a rear parking lot and would have been used by custodians to get to dumpsters outside, Tanney said.

Besides custodians, as many as eight election supervisors also have keys to the building, Tanney noted.

Certain It Was Locked

“But I’m fairly certain that my staff would not fail to lock up,” he said. “We have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment here, and they wouldn’t forget to lock the door.”

Tanney said his office will “review and take another look at how we process absentee ballots.” The ballots were to have been placed Monday night in the room where they will be counted, and it has a locked door, Tanney said.

Officials expect to count the ballots today, a process expected to take several hours.

Officials rejected arguments that the ballots should have been secured, saying it was not required and had not been the practice.

“During the time I have been here, it has not been standard procedure to lock up absentee ballots,” Tanney said. “So it’s not a matter of doing something wrong by leaving them out there.”

Lever said the ballots were secured in a locked room after last Tuesday’s election because of concerns voiced by Republicans and Democrats over security.

“We made that decision based on their wanting to keep an eye on each other,” she said. “Representatives for both parties were here on Wednesday watching, but on Thursday only the Republicans were here and (the representative) indicated they were not concerned with keeping the ballots locked up any more.”

Reporter Called Police

After the Times reporter discovered the door unlocked and no one in the building Sunday afternoon, she called the Santa Ana police, who sent a patrol car to the scene. The officer locked the building and both departed.

Lt. Bob Chavez, a spokesman for the Santa Ana Police Department, said the responding officers found no sign of forced entry and determined that the interior doors were locked.

“Under the circumstances, we felt secure that there had been no entry and that it was an accidental incident,” Chavez said. “Our officer left the location and did not notify anyone or make out a report.”