SLO County DA finds no election crime after investigating ballot count allegation

The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office has closed an inquiry into the local elections office after a referral from federal law enforcement alleged “potential election crimes” last month, the department announced Tuesday evening.

According to the release, the District Attorney’s Office received “a written referral from a federal law enforcement agency with information alleging potential election crimes occurring during the counting of ballots in San Luis Obispo County” on Nov. 29.

The referral questioned an increase of more than 300 provisional ballots that was announced when the SLO County Clerk-Recorder’s Office released on election update on Nov. 23, according to the release. The referral claimed that election observers were “sent home” and that the roughly 300 provisional ballots were “found” while no observers were present, according to the release.

The District Attorney’s Public Integrity Unit opened an inquiry into the matter after confirming 327 more provisional ballots than had previously been reported were included in the Clerk-Recorder’s Office’s Nov. 23 update.

According to the release, Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano “promptly provided a response that explained the apparent discrepancy between the two reported totals of provisional ballots as an error when using a spreadsheet to total the ballots.”

Cano said the provisional ballot envelopes received by county precincts on Election Night were counted and included on an Excel spreadsheet that her office used to report estimated figures to the Secretary of State (SOS). At the time of that first report, however, the spreadsheet didn’t generate totals for the provisional ballots for some precincts, totaling about 327 provisional ballots, she said.

“Consequently, when my office reported the estimate of total unprocessed provisional ballots to the SOS on the second day after the election, the provisional ballots for the referenced precincts were not included in that estimate,” Cano told the District Attorney’s Office, according to the release. “When the results of the election were updated on Nov. 23, the provisional ballot totals for precincts 101-123 and 201-220 were captured and included in the ‘estimated’ numbers provided to the SOS on that same day.”

According to the release, the Public Integrity 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.”

“Public confidence in the integrity of our elections and the vote counting process is essential to the functioning of our federal, state and local government,” the release said. “Therefore, full transparency about the facts and process when questions are raised is essential to ensure the public trust in our local elections.”