Absentee Ballots Mailed for November Election

Vote-by-mail ballots for the Nov. 4 general election should be arriving soon for most Riverside County residents, as they went out this week to registered voters throughout Riverside County -- including residents who had previously been assigned to the wrong precincts.

According to Registrar of Voters Rebecca Spencer, a total 498,000 absentee ballots will be distributed for the mid-term election.

Registered voters have until Oct. 28 to apply for a mail-in ballot. County residents who aren’t registered to vote have until Oct. 20 to do so.

According to Spencer, a ballot printing error was caught in time to prevent the wrong vote-by-mail ballots from being issued to 35 county residents in the communities of El Serrito, Glen Ivy Hot Springs, Good Hope and Sage.

Spencer said that since 2012, the residents had been assigned to the wrong congressional and state Senate districts because they lived right on the boundaries of districts that had been adjusted after the last census. The new district lines went into effect in 2012.

The mistake was caught before ballots were sent for the Nov. 4 election, according to the registrar. She said the 35 voters were contacted by phone and given an explanation.

“None of the contests in 2012 (were) close enough for 35 votes to have changed the outcome of the election,” Spencer said.

Redacted ballots for the current election were drawn up and mailed to the affected voters.

--City News Service.