Republicans in San Fernando Valley are growing suspicious after being told they already voted when going to submit their ballots in the California gubernatorial recall election.
People who were forced to submit provisional ballots due to the errors spoke to KTLA about what is happening.
West Hills resident Estelle Bender, 88, told the station that she was not the only one who had the problem at El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills — and the issue seemed to be only happening to Republicans.
Bender said that she had friends who faced the same problem and spoke to three other people at the polling place who were also told they already cast their ballots when they had not. She also stated that the poll worker told her “this has been happening all morning.”
“I’d still like to know how I voted,” Bender said, adding that she “left really angry” after casting the provisional ballot.
The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office said in a statement that the provisional ballots will make sure everyone’s votes are properly counted. They said that “once the eligibility of the voter is verified, [the ballots] are processed and counted.”
Governor Gavin Newsom’s fate will be decided on Tuesday. It is the fourth gubernatorial recall election in US history.
Current polls show that he is likely to remain in office, but it is still anyone’s game. According to the FiveThirtyEight average of polls, 41.6 percent of Californians want to recall him, while 56.2 percent do not.
“Usually, a 14.7-percentage-point polling lead is pretty safe, but this election isn’t usual, so some caution is warranted. This is a particularly challenging race to poll accurately because it’s hard to estimate who’s likely to vote. That’s due to two things in particular: the odd timing of the election (September of an odd-numbered year) and the fact that it is being conducted primarily by mail. In other words, don’t be surprised if there’s a larger-than-usual polling error,” FiveThirtyEight stressed.
