Voters Report Ballot Issues During California Elections for US Senate

During the 2024 primary election in California on March 5, some voters in San Mateo County reported that they had trouble finding the name of a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate on their electronic ballots.

The Epoch Times Northern California office received a report from a woman who voted in San Mateo County. The voting station she went to was located at Foster City Community Center. She told The Epoch Times that when she voted around 8 a.m., she was not able to locate Republican candidate Steve Garvey on the voting machine.

She (pseudonym Voter X) requested to remain anonymous because she lives in an area where the majority of residents are Democrats. She said that she was worried about being exposed to potential retaliation.

California has two open seats for the U.S. Senate this year—one for a six-year full term and another for a six-month term, and Mr. Garvey has been a candidate for both.

Voter X said that after going back and forth several times on the voting machine, looking for the name “Steve Garvey” on the electronic ballot, she was only able to find him listed as a candidate for the six-month seat, but not for the full-term seat.

Voter X then sought help from the voting station’s supervisor. The supervisor told her that he was aware of the problem and had reported it to the main office a few days ago.

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In the end, Voter X had to write in Mr. Garvey’s name for the U.S. Senate full-term seat, but she was left uncertain whether her vote would be properly counted.

She said that when her husband went to the same voting station to cast his vote, he had no problem finding the name of the same candidate for both U.S. Senate seats.

Voter X stated that she had worked for an election integrity project before and had also worked as a voting observer in the past.

Mr. Garvey is running against Democratic candidate Adam Schiff. Polls before the election had indicated that these two candidates were front runners in a close race.

The Epoch Times also interviewed three other voters who cast their votes for Mr. Garvey at a different voting station, the San Carlos Library in San Mateo County. They all reported that they had difficulty locating Mr. Garvey on the voting machine; however, they were eventually able to find his name.

Trisha Seevers said she went back and forth several times and couldn’t find Mr. Garvey’s name for the full-term seat. She was about to give up and clicked the choice for a write-in candidate, and then Mr. Garvey’s name popped up.

Her husband, Dan Seevers, said he looked up and down the list several times for Mr. Garvey’s name. He finally found it, but the ballot did not show Mr. Garvey’s political affiliation. Since Mr. Garvey is a Republican, a capital R was supposed to be printed next to his name, but it was missing.

Cliff Kramer, who also voted at the San Carlos Library station, reported a similar experience to the Seevers’ in a separate interview with The Epoch Times.

The Epoch Times was able to verify that there were two other Garvey supporters who went to a voting station in Redwood City in San Mateo County and had no problems voting for Mr. Garvey.

Jim Irizarry from the San Mateo County voting office informed The Epoch Times that the difficulty was caused by the long list of candidates running for the U.S. Senate seats this year in California’s primary election, which required many voters to spend extra time searching for the names of their preferred candidates.

The Epoch Times has also contacted the California State Secretary’s office but has received no response as of this writing.