Election Day caps far-from-perfect balloting process in Stanislaus County

A campaign season that featured registration blitzes, ballot confusion and a visit from a major presidential candidate will culminate Tuesday with voters going to the polls in Stanislaus County.

Bernie Sanders stirred excitement Thursday with his rally in Modesto and his attempt to keep Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton from getting the delegates needed to clinch the nomination.

The Republican presidential field was narrowed to Donald Trump a month ago. State and local races are also on Tuesday’s complicated ballot, which has been a cause of confusion for thousands of voters.

The presidential election spurred interest in crossover voting by people registered with no party preference. The Democrats allowed nonpartisan voters to participate in their presidential primary, but those voters will have needed to obtain a Democratic Party ballot to vote for Clinton or Sanders. About 38,000 adults in the county are registered with no party preference.

A higher-than-normal turnout is expected for what’s been a far-from-perfect election process in Stanislaus County.

Bob Benedetti, a research associate for the Center for California Studies at Sacramento State University, said he liked the idea of offering crossover voting to nonpartisan voters but can’t fathom why it required the eligible voters to ask for a special ballot.

“Suffrage in the United States overall is in bad shape,” said Benedetti, who retired from teaching political science at University of Pacific in Stockton. “It needs to be rethought so you have people coming to the polls in an orderly fashion.”

To add to the confusion, about 24,000 replacement ballots were mailed last month to registered Republicans in Modesto and the Oakdale area after a vendor failed to print the Republican Central Committee races on vote-by-mail ballots. Some voters already had sent in their mail ballots and were asked by county elections officials to vote again using the replacement ballots, which would invalidate the originals.

The printing mistake affected about 12,000 Republican voters in county supervisorial District 1 in Oakdale-Riverbank and another 12,000 in District 4 in Modesto.

“The letters that were sent out did not mention what was wrong with the ballot,” said county Supervisor Jim DeMartini, chairman of the Republican Central Committee. As a result, some people who were eligible to vote for a Central Committee candidate more than likely didn’t do so. DeMartini is seeking a fourth term on the Board of Supervisors in a separate contest on the ballot, which was not affected by the printing error.

The Republican Central Committee could settle for an imperfect election to choose its committee members this time. DeMartini noted that Central Committee races are sometimes decided by a small number of votes.

“There is a lot of confusion about it,” DeMartini said. “It is too bad something like this happened. I don’t know what can be done.”

The vendor based in Southern California took responsibility for the error and the costs of replacement ballots. DeMartini said an arrangement should be made to proofread ballots after they are printed and before they are mailed to voters.

Lee Lundrigan, registrar of voters for Stanislaus County, said 160,000 mail ballots were sent to voters and 37,000 had been returned as of Friday. She had no estimate on the number of mail ballots returned Monday. Lundrigan said from 20,000 to 30,000 mail ballots are typically delivered by voters to polling places on Election Day.

The elections office on I Street in downtown Modesto was receiving mail ballots at a drive-up station Monday. Lundrigan said she could not gauge how the number of replacement ballots issued and the requirement to count mail ballots postmarked on or before Election Day would affect the time frame for the count.

Despite the problems with ballots, registration drives increased the number of eligible voters in Stanislaus County to 219,255, up from 215,594 in January. The Democrats gained about 4,500 members, though the GOP still leads with 87,043 to 83,063 for the Democrats. The county’s registration breakdown is now 40 percent GOP, 38 percent Democratic and 18 percent nonpartisan and 4 percent other parties, according to numbers released by county elections.

California’s open primary, which took effect in 2011, could create the novelty of sending two candidates from the same party to the election in November. Because the top two vote-getters advance, regardless of party affiliation, most expect two Democrats will vie for California’s open U.S. Senate seat in November.

Political experts are not so certain about the primary for the 12th Assembly District seat being vacated by Kristin Olsen of Riverbank, who is terming out. Republicans Ken Vogel of Linden, Cindy Marks of Modesto and Heath Flora of Ripon are running for what’s been a secure district for the GOP. Harinder Grewal of Keyes and Virginia Madueno will try to get enough votes for a face-off with a Republican in the fall.

In the 5th state Senate District, Democratic incumbent Cathleen Galgiani of Stockton is challenged by Republicans Alan Nakanishi and Samuel Anderson. Assemblyman Adam Gray of Merced is opposed by Greg Opinski.

Rep. Jeff Denham is seeking re-election against Democratic challenger Michael Eggman and two other candidates in the 10th Congressional District.

In local races, DeMartini is challenged by Patterson Mayor Luis Molina and retired county employee Eileen Wyatt Stokman for the Board of Supervisors seat in District 5, including Ceres, Patterson and Newman.

Olsen is returning to local government service as the lone candidate in county supervisorial District 1, which takes in Riverbank and Oakdale; and incumbent Supervisor Vito Chiesa is unopposed in District 2, which includes Turlock and Hughson.

Modesto again has Measure F on the ballot to decide how Modesto City Schools will elect trustees by district. The results of the same measure in November were invalidated after it was only put before residents in the city limits, excluding some of the school district’s voters.

This story was originally published June 6, 2016 at 6:59 PM with the headline "Election Day caps far-from-perfect balloting process in Stanislaus County."