Villaraigosa asks for polls to open through Friday after voter roster glitch
LOS ANGELES -- Thousands of voters in Los Angeles County arrived at their designated polling places Tuesday only to find that their names were not on the list.
According to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder's Office, the issue was brought to officials' attention and poll workers are tracking the occurrences. The error stems from an apparent "random drop off" during the printing of the rosters, according to officials.
Gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa is calling on the Secretary of State to reopen polling centers Thursday through Friday. He's also calling on Sec. of State Alex Padilla to investigate what the campaign calls an unprecedented number of voters who were omitted and to open voting centers in LA through Friday.
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As the former mayor of Los Angeles, Villaraigosa is seen as having a base of voters in the region.
"Obviously this is unprecedented, to have this number," Villaraigosa said Tuesday evening less than an hour before the polls were due to close. "We're hoping that it's just a mixup. But clearly I think I'm fairly calm about the fact that it's here in LA County primarily. That's anecdotally what we're hearing and this is the county I come from."
VIDEO: 118K LA County voters' names not listed on polling place rosters
Initially, Villaraigosa was asking for the polls to be open later on election night. But his campaign later issued a statement asking for them to remain open until Friday.
Elections officials said to hold polls open past 8 p.m. would require a court order and no such order was filed in time, so the polls did close as scheduled.
A total of 1,530 voting locations were affected, and 118,522 voters' names were omitted from the lists, officials confirmed in a press release.
Officials urged registered voters who are told that their names do not appear on the list at their polling place to request a provisional ballot. "Those ballots will be processed and counted in the election returns," said Brenda Duran of the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder's Office.
"We have adequate supplies at all locations to issue provisional ballots and again we want to stress that those ballots will be counted," Duran said.
Los Angeles County also tweeted out instructions to voters who might be experiencing the issue at their polling places. The county urged voters not to leave without casting their provisional ballot.
"Our office is committed to ensuring every voter has a positive voting experience on Election Day," Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean C. Logan said. "We apologize for the inconvenience and concern this has caused. Voters should be assured their vote will be counted."
According to the registrar's office, an average of 85-90 percent of provisional ballots are deemed valid and are counted.
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