Don’t believe election deniers. There was no ‘ballotgate’ in SLO County

Election denialism may be dying out in some parts of the country, but it’s alive and well in San Obispo County.

In one of its most recent manifestations, election watchers went running to the feds to report a possible crime involving more than 300 “missing” ballots.

Vindication of the Elections Office came from an unlikely corner: the District Attorney’s Office.

For that, we thank Dan Dow. By refuting the latest election conspiracy theory floated by San Luis Obispo County’s wacky far-right, he stood up for democracy and the rule of law.

What’s more, the news release issued Tuesday by Dow’s District Attorney’s Office leaves no doubt as to the explanation of the “discovery” of more than 300 provisional ballots that weren’t reported until Nov. 23.

It was a tabulation error — not a deliberate attempt to mess with election results.

Coming from one of San Luis Obispo County’s highest-ranking Republican officials — one who has made no secret of his disdain for progressive politicians — that should count for something with the local conspiracy nuts, right?

After all, Dan Dow is the same guy who donated $25,000 from his own campaign chest to a shady political action committee that attempted to destroy Supervisor Bruce Gibson by lying about his record.

It didn’t work. Gibson won the election by 13 votes, the Clerk-Recorder’s Office announced Wednesday.

Given Dow’s obvious bias, you could argue that his office should have been the last to investigate the allegation first reported to a federal election agency — most likely the FBI.

No one has taken responsibility for making the report, though local election deniers are the most likely parties. After all, far-right conservatives have been questioning the integrity of the county’s election process at every turn.

They seized on the story of the “found” ballots as yet another episode of wrongdoing. To add to the intrigue, they claimed the ballots were discovered only after observers who had been watching the tabulating process had been sent home.

The FBI likely referred the case to the DA’s Office, leading to an investigation by the Public Integrity Unit.

According to the DA’s news release, the unit “found no evidence that would contradict the explanation of a spreadsheet calculation error and therefore releases these facts to increase transparency and trust in the ongoing ballot counting by our county elections staff.”

That conclusion should carry strong weight with SLO County’s far right, which has stood solidly behind Dow.

But the operative word here is “should.”

Election denialism has taken root in San Luis Obispo County, and it’s going to take more than a single news release to dislodge it.

And here’s an even bigger shame: SLO County’s high-ranking conservatives still aren’t doing much to defend the integrity of our local Elections Office.

Quite the opposite.

At the Nov. 1 board meeting, Supervisor Debbie Arnold publicly thanked speakers who have been commenting about perceived election irregularities — creating the impression that something is very wrong with the way the local Election Office operates.

“I want to tell you I agree with you that I believe there are vulnerabilities in our election process. And we know we’ve had so many changes just in ... two or three years,” Arnold said.

“And there are things that we’ve been hearing (about) at every single board meeting during public comment: accuracy, the vote rolls, all-mail-in-ballots, the chain-of-custody issues, the ballot harvesting, the machine counting, the no voter ID ... and we never talked about, are they working?”

Yet we do have proof that they are working: The recount of the results in the June primary Jimmy Paulding-Lynn Compton race perfectly matched the original count.

That should have renewed confidence in election integrity.

Apparently, it didn’t if we still have malcontents who put the Elections Office under a microscope and run to the FBI to cry wolf about a supposed election crime that is easily discounted.

In this climate of distrust, it’s unfortunate the Elections Office didn’t catch the error earlier.

Nor does the inordinate amount of time it took to release final election results help instill confidence, but to automatically assume something nefarious is going on is ridiculous and dangerous.

The increased popularity of voting by mail, coupled with a lack of resources, are the underlying issues. According to Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano, her department doesn’t have enough space to add staff or vote-counting equipment, even if it could.

That’s something to look into prior to 2024.

Widespread mail-in balloting isn’t going away, despite the best efforts of election deniers. We should be looking into how to deal with that, rather than resigning ourselves to waiting a month to find out who won.

In the meantime, pay no attention to MAGA-inspired attacks on the integrity of the San Luis Obispo County’s Elections Office.

To borrow a phrase from the District Attorney’s Office, “trust in the ongoing ballot counting by our county elections staff.”