S.J. registrar finds cause of ballot omission

During last week’s general election, the contest between incumbent Ron Heberle and challenger Ramon Yepez for the Lodi Unified School District Board of Education Area 5 seat was omitted from 545 ballots due to a clerical error.

San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters Melinda Dubroff on Wednesday said she had discovered the cause of the omission.

“We have over 1,300 precinct portions in the county, and in the course of maintaining precinct-district relationships, that district with those 545 voters was not properly associated with (LUSD) Trustee Area 5,” Dubroff said.

Those 545 voters received sample ballots that omitted the contest between Heberle and Yepez, Dubroff said, adding that the contest was also omitted from those same voters’ vote-by-mail ballots as well as the ballots at their polling place.

The error was discovered on Election Day last Tuesday, Dubroff said, and replacement ballots were sent out.

“Some of those voters were able to cast ballots with that contest,” Dubroff said.

Although Yepez said in a statement to the News-Sentinel last Wednesday that he believed the omission occurred due to voter suppression, and that the majority of voters who received omitted ballots were minority voters, no evidence was found to support his claim.

Heberle was ahead with 2,862 votes (75.43 percent) as of Wednesday evening, while Yepez received 932 votes (24.57 percent).

With Heberle leading by more than 1,900 votes, it’s unlikely that the error will affect the outcome of the race.

Neither Heberle nor Yepez could be reached for comment.

Dubroff launched her investigation the day after the election, she said, and found that the initial error that led to the omission occurred before candidate filing had even opened.

“Now, we’ll be looking at our procedures and adding additional checks to our precinct district associations to make sure this mistake isn’t made in the future,” Dubroff said.