Thousands of duplicate mail-in ballots were mailed to voters in Tulare County, California, after a printing company error sparked confusion and phone calls to election officials.
The mistake affected roughly 7,900 of the county’s 227,000 registered voters, or about 3 percent of the rolls, according to County Registrar of Voters Chief Clerk Michelle Baldwin. In the Republican-leaning city of Tulare, where just over 34,500 people are registered, approximately 23 percent received two ballots.
Mario Garcia discovered the problem through his regular mail routine. “I waited a couple of days to pick up my mail, and I picked it up on Friday and I saw one ballot, and yesterday I went again to get the mail and I saw the other one,” Garcia told ABC 30. His wife and son also received duplicate ballots, compounding the household’s confusion.
The error originated with ProVote Solutions, a Porterville-based printer that has handled Tulare County’s ballots for years. Baldwin said the company has accepted full responsibility for the mistake. She emphasized that safeguards exist to prevent any extra ballot from actually being counted.
The mix-up drew national attention to election administration practices in a state already facing scrutiny. Last week, residents called and appeared in person at the registrar’s office in Visalia, anxious about potential accusations of attempted double voting.
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former Justice Department voting enforcement attorney, contextualized the incident for the Los Angeles Times. “Accidents do happen,” he said.
“Our elections are incredibly decentralized, run by hundreds of thousands of human beings. As a result, we know there is going to be human error, but our elections are not designed to be perfect. That’s impossible.”
Tulare County was not the only California jurisdiction to report duplicate ballots. Imperial County officials announced Monday that 160 voters with confidential status received duplicate ballots in a separate mailing error. That mistake was tied to changes in ballot processing procedures under California law.
The timing of both incidents proved politically charged. Federal officials announced charges Monday against 28 people in California for election-related crimes, including alleged fraudulent voter registration and false statements on naturalization applications. The convergence of local administrative errors and federal criminal charges intensified existing debates over the security of California’s election process.
Baldwin’s office continued working to reassure affected voters that the duplicate Tulare County ballots could not corrupt the final count. The ProVote Solutions error, while striking in scale, remained confined to a single county’s printing contract rather than indicating any broader systemic vulnerability.