150,000 ballots have already been submitted safely to the Contra Costa County Registrar’s Office, but elections officials say that about 40 have mysteriously gone missing.
County officials say they have heard from voters who dropped their ballots at the drop box at Richmond City Hall on October 12 and kept track of their progress using the county’s ballot status tool, only to see that they apparently never arrived for processing and verification.
"Ballot boxes are emptied every day. They’re emptied every day by a team of two people, and ballots were picked up on the 12th and on the 13th. We can’t explain why we don’t have the ballots that the voters said they dropped off on Monday the 12th," said Assistant Registrar Scott Konopasek. "But what’s really important is that those voters get a chance to vote."
The county re-issued ballots to those voters and offered them the option to vote in person.
"Voters look at this as a success story," he said. "The system worked. Voters voted early, they checked their status, they notified us and we corrected the situation."
Officials do not suspect anyone tampered with the drop box. If the missing ballots do somehow arrive for processing, the county’s ballot monitoring system should catch them and prevent them from being counted twice.
The investigation continues, and county officials encourage any voters who used the drop box to track their ballot and verify that it arrived.