October 30, 2005

"O.C. mails corrected Korean sample ballots"

"Sarah Koo's Korean-language sample ballot arrived in her mailbox Wednesday.

The Anaheim Hills pharmacist skimmed through the propositions on the ballot for the Nov. 8 election. When she came across Proposition 79 – the one that would provide prescription-drug discounts and rebates – she stopped.

What she found was a description of Prop. 73, which deals with abortion.

The Orange County Registrar of Voters Office mailed out 7,570 Korean-language sample ballots last week that omitted and duplicated information and had factual errors. On Wednesday, the office sent out 7,570 corrections.

"We're all human beings. There have been errors made. We catch and we fix it," said acting registrar of voters deputy Neal Kelly.

It cost the county more than $4,000 to mail the sample ballots in the first place and about $1,000 to send the correction notices.

Although on Friday, employees in the registrar's office were still handing out Korean-language sample ballots without the accompanying correction flier.

The mistakes have confused some voters and led one county supervisor to consider calling for a hearing to explore why the mistakes occurred.

faulty translation

On Tuesday, voters started calling the registrar's office about the mistakes, which included the omission of a Prop. 79 description and the wrong monetary figure for the effect of Prop. 77, which deals with redistricting.

Kelly said corrections were mailed the next day and blamed the errors on a Washington state-based translator who has a contract with the county."

You can read the story here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at October 30, 2005 08:35 AM