County clerk reports memory card problem
By KATIE MINTZ The Daily Journal
Article Last Updated:11/10/2006 08:58:03 AM PST

Ukiah votes must be recounted

The Mendocino County Elections Office announced Wednesday evening that results from some absentee ballots were lost election night when the memory card on which they were being stored was corrupted.

Now, the ballots, which came from the first and second supervisorial districts, including the City of Ukiah, must be recounted.

The announcement explains why the final unofficial results released late Wednesday morning showed an increase in the number of ballots counted from results released earlier that same morning.

"Rather than hold up the final unofficial results for election night, it was decided to report the results as they appeared on all of the memory cards except the corrupted one and ballots will be recounted during the canvass," a press release from the office read.

Assistant Registrar of Voters Katrina Bartolomie said she did not know the exact number of ballots left to recount Thursday afternoon. The Elections Office is also working on processing and counting absentee and provisional ballots left at polling places, and absentee ballots delivered to the office by mail on Election Day.

According to the press release, the Elections Office usually releases numbers detailing "how many ballots are left to process in the county as well as for each of the local contests on the ballot" on the Thursday following election day. However, Bartolomie said the number of ballots was not yet known Thursday afternoon. She declined to offer an estimate.

"We will issue a press release as soon as we know," Bartolomie said.

In addition to recounting the ballots from the corrupted memory card and counting absentee and provisional ballots received on Election Day, the Elections Office will also manually count 1 percent of ballots in the official canvass of votes.

The purpose of the canvass is to "validate that all voted ballots have been accounted for and that all votes have been counted accurately," according to the press release. The office has, by law, up to 28 days after the election to complete the canvass and certify the results.

Bartolomie said she could not estimate how long it would take to complete the canvass. The canvass of votes for the June 6 primary was completed in only 14 days.

"You always hope you're done earlier, but we've got 28 days and we want to make sure its right," Bartolomie said.