More Than 2,000 LA County Voters Received Mail-In Ballots With No Way to Vote for President

Election workers sort vote-by-mail ballots for the presidential primary at King County Elections in Renton, Wash., on March 10, 2020. Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images

About 2,100 Los Angeles County voters received mail-in ballots without a way to vote for president as the ballots omitted the presidential race.

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder office confirmed the erroneous ballots were sent out, saying it was a printing error that affected the more than 2,000 documents. The ballots did not include President Donald Trump, Democratic nominee Joe Biden, Kanye West, or the other choices for president.

Registrar Dean Logan said in a statement, “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.”

A spokesperson for the county clerk’s office, Michael Sanchez, told KTLA that “while this has impacted a very small number of Los Angeles County voters … we nevertheless apologize to those affected by the mistake.”

The office called on 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,” Logan said.

Attorney Christy Gargalis, who lives in Woodland Hills, told the Los Angeles Times that she noticed the faulty ballot when it was delivered to her.

“I’ve always been an in-person voter, so I wasn’t even planning on looking at the ballot until the day I was going to vote,” Gargalis said. “Something told me that this was a different election, a different year, and I just had to check my ballot, and I’m glad I did,” added Gargalis.

Adding further, she said that her neighbors also received the faulty ballots.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier was arrested for allegedly dumping mail, including election ballots.

Nicholas Beauchene, 26, of Kearny, New Jersey, was charged with one count of delay, secretion, or detention of mail and one count of obstruction of mail, authorities said.

The issue was noted by President Donald Trump on Twitter, who wrote that 2,000 Los Angeles County voters got the 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!” he continued.

Over the past several months, Trump has frequently noted that due to the significant amount of ballots being mailed out because of the pandemic, there is a heightened risk for election rigging or delayed vote counts. Democrats like Biden or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California have alleged Trump’s assertions on the election are an attempt to engage in voter suppression.