Redistricting delays many sample ballots

David Drucker
Redlands Daily Facts
February 15, 2002

Sample ballots for March 5's election have yet to arrive for thousands of voters in San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties because of a production problem caused partly by redistricting, an official said Thursday.

Of San Bernardino County's 620,000 registered voters, 550,000 have had their sample ballots mailed out, Registrar of Voters Ingrid E. Gonzales said.

The percentage of L.A. County's 4 million registered voters whose sample ballots have not yet been mailed was not immediately available, according to Los Angeles County registrar of voters spokeswoman Grace Chavez.

Georgeann Andrus, co-president of the League of Women Voters' Claremont Area chapter, said she had not received hers as of Thursday's mail.

"I just talked to another friend of mine in Claremont who has not received hers," Andrus said, "although a friend of hers received her sample ballot two weeks earlier."

The delay resulted from a confluence of factors, especially the new and realigned congressional and legislative districts borne from the results of the 2000 census.

These districts determine how many versions of sample ballots a county must print, Gonzales said.

"For this election, we were anticipating having 85 ballot types," Gonzales said. "We ended up with 145."

The actual number of sample ballots is determined by multiplying the number of political parties on the California ballot eight by the number of ballot types, said Gonzales.

Accordingly, said Gonzales, San Bernardino County had to print 1,160 different sample ballots, instead of the 680 originally planned.

Add to that changes in the voting law in effect for the first time, and the registrar's office ended up with a lot more work on its hands in terms of layout and printing, Gonzales said.

"It's kind of like all of the planets lined up" in terms of creating roadblocks that prevented counties from mailing ballots out on time, Andrus said.

San Bernardino County is still within the legal deadline for mailing out sample ballots, Gonzales said. But the process is taking longer than it usually does.

Andrus said Los Angeles County's last round of ballot mailings was scheduled for Tuesday.

What the late mailing might result in, said Andrus, is confusion at polling places.

"I think this could produce some anxiety among voters," she said. "It could cause a back-up at the check-in line."

Registrar officials said voters wishing to receive absentee ballots can still request them by mail even if they haven't received their sample ballots.

A letter directed to the registrar requesting an absentee ballot and signed by the registered voter will result in having a ballot sent to them.

San Bernardino County voters can write to the Registrar of Voters Office, 777 E. Rialto Ave., San Bernardino 92415-0770. Information is also available at (909) 387-8300.Redistricting delays many sample ballot