A state audit of Santa Clara County’s elections office — which has been plagued with an inordinate amount of mistakes over the years — found that it lacks detailed policies employed in other counties to prevent errors and analyze them fully when they do occur. The audit — called for by a frustrated Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell, who previously chaired the assembly’s elections committee — reviewed 26 errors that have happened from 2010 to 2016. In addition to the lack of procedural guidelines, the audit found that the county doesn’t have a clear plan or process to alert voters potentially affected by an error in ballot materials. And while “in most in most cases, it identified and took action to notify voters of the errors before the relevant elections,” auditors found that there’s no concrete system of recording these mistakes.
“Because some of the more significant errors Santa Clara County experienced were related to mapping and to inaccuracies in ballots and voter information guides, we expected to find that it had developed comprehensive policies and procedures to prevent these types of errors from recurring,” said State Auditor Elaine Howle on the report’s cover letter. “However, it has not done so.”
It added that the county “compiled the list of 26 errors using staff members’ collective memory and information it found in documents, emails, and press releases.”
Full Article: State audit probes Santa Clara County election mistakes.