Ahead of Tuesday’s hotly-contested special election in California’s 25th congressional district a watchdog group has announced that, according to their research, hundreds of voters have received two or even three mail-in ballots in the May 12 contest, which was ordered to be “all vote by mail” by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Election Integrity Project-California reviewed the voter file for the district, which encompasses much of northern Los Angeles County and the Simi Valley portion of Ventura County. They found:

“773 voters appear to have been mailed two or more ballots each. Five voters, if confirmed, were mailed 3 ballots each. These voters have two or more active registrations under the same names, addresses and birthdates. Those at differing addresses have additional matching factors. Persons mailed more than one ballot can easily vote more than once, since the system has them listed as two different voters. In addition, 82 duplicated voters appear to have moved to a different congressional district, retained their CD25 registrations and were mailed CD25 ballots. Also mailed ballots were 54 people who appear to be 105+ years old.”

EPICa alerted Secretary of State Alex Padilla, Los Angeles County elections head Dean Logan, and Ventura County elections head Mark Lunn to the problem May 4, offering to provide the data electronically, but as of May 11 the group has not received a response from any elections official.

In a statement EIPCa President Linda Paine said:

“Our organization has been advocating for clean voter lists for ten years. These two elections are examples of what will happen statewide in November unless California’s list is finally cleared of duplicates, deceased, and voters who have moved away.

The lack of response from election officials underscores their focus on access over integrity. California voters deserve and must demand both.”

CA-25’s special election pits Democrat Assemblywoman Christy Smith against Republican Mike Garcia. One area of the district, Santa Clarita, has seen a rash of mailbox thefts, including from locked community mailboxes, and some voters claim they’ve never received a mail ballot. One bag of stolen mail that was recovered contained at least six mail ballots. This photo was provided to RedState by a confidential source:

Some claim that the rash of mailbox break-ins had nothing to do with the possibility that unvoted ballots might be contained therein and was related to the possibility that unemployment and stimulus checks might be found. (Insert eyeroll.gif here.)

EIPCa will be monitoring in-person polling places open in the CA-25 special election and any possible double votes cast by mail.

(Disclaimer: The author is personally and professionally acquainted with both Smith and Garcia. The author has no professional involvement in the CA25 election in 2020.)