Voting Officials in Santa Cruz Make $5 Billion Error. On May 19, as voters were starting to show up at the polls, the Santa Cruz County Elections Department discovered that it had made several errors in the ballot descriptions used on its electronic touch-screen ballot.
For example, Proposition 1C, which would have allowed $5 billion in borrowing from future lottery profits, was described as allowing just $5 in borrowing. The descriptions of Propositions 1A and 1B omitted the second year in several references where fiscal years were mentioned. The description of Proposition 1D said it would result in state general fund savings of $608, instead of $608 million, and also omitted the second year in a reference to a fiscal year.
Elections officials said only four people voted using the touch-screens before the errors were discovered, and that the correct language and notice of the error was provided to subsequent voters.
"The error was a human proof-reading mistake made by the Santa Cruz County Elections Department," the county's elections chief said. (Cal-Tax: Human error is inevitable, but let's put this in perspective: This government agency exists solely to conduct elections, and in this major election with just six measures on the ballot, they made mistakes in four descriptions.) (Source: San Jose Mercury News, May 19.)
Cal-Taxletter, May 22, 2009
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