October 9, 2020 at 8:16 pm

2,265 voters were mailed ballots on October 5 which accidentally did not include the race for Delta College Trustee Area 2, said the San Joaquin Registrar of Voters on Friday. The error was pointed out by one of the three candidates in the race. Roughly 51,000 people are eligible to vote on the contest.

Replacements will be mailed out accordingly. Those who have already returned their original ballot can still fill out and return their new ballot, which will be counted instead. If the new ballot is not sent in, the old one will be counted. Regardless of how many ballots will be sent in, only one will be counted.

The three candidates are Van-Ha To-Cowell, the current trustee, Dr. Elizabeth Blanchard, a retired Delta College professor, and Sabrina Flores-Eng, a cultural educator.

There are currently 27 locations throughout the county where ballots can be dropped off. Hours vary by site. 34 voter service centers will also be available for in-person voting starting on October 31, the Saturday before the election.

A similar error occurred in Yolo County, where 581 voters received incorrect ballots. Voter registrars across California have been grappling with having to suddenly scale up their operations after Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order in May to send a mail-in ballot to every registered voter in the state.

Despite the errors, voting by mail fraud is extremely rare.