Elections Division officials discover 113 voters successfully cast two ballots in June election
As a result of an emergency accommodation to the California Secretary of State’s office, the Contra Costa County Elections Division has discovered that 113 registered voters voted twice and had both ballots counted during the June 7th Presidential Primary Election.
The Contra Costa Elections Division plans to send those voter fraud cases to the Contra Costa District Attorney’s office, Registrar of Voters Joe Canciamilla said.
Elections Division staff will also send recommendations to the Secretary of State’s office requesting a change in their practices for surrendering vote-by-mail ballots.
Contra Costa County’s long standing practice in administering state Election Code 3016 has been to issue provisional ballots to all vote-by-mail voters who surrender their ballots at a polling place. Part of the reason this practice is in place is to prevent voter fraud.
The process of surrendering a ballot as it is currently written does not provide a means of detecting or preventing this type of fraud until it is too late.
The County is urging Secretary of State Alex Padilla to seek urgency legislation or work with counties to eliminate this vulnerability in the election process for the November election.
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