Oops! She did it again — Riverside, California registrar mails 5,000 voters duplicate ballots

By Monica Showalter

So this happened, in Riverside County, (population 2.4 million) California, according to the Los Angeles Times:

About 5,000 people in Riverside County will receive duplicate vote-by-mail ballots for the November midterm election after a “computer system error,” but the mistake won’t allow voters to cast ballots twice, according to the county registrar.
 
The computer error was caught over the weekend, but not before 5,000 mail-in ballots were sent to voters living in Canyon Lake, Menifee, Murrieta, Wildomar and Winchester, said Rebecca Spencer, the Riverside County registrar of voters.
 
Spencer recommended anyone who receives identical ballots to destroy the extra copy.

Nothing to see here, little technical glitch, just throw that extra ballot away, and move along. They’ve got this. Elections are always clean in California. Problem over, right? 
 
Not exactly.
 
Start with the technical claim that the second ballots sent cannot be counted.
 
On Twitter, one person did argue that such things aren’t exactly as cut-and-dried as the Riverside County registrar of the voters, Rebecca Spencer, claims:
 

 
If that’s true, a great gaslight is going up about the security of the mail balloting system and whether two votes can be cast from one voter. One wonders what becomes of the thrown-away ballots, assuming the duplicates are thrown away, as well as those that are cast twice.
 
The L.A. Times, though, takes the registrar’s word for it that the problem is all fixed.
 
Hey, maybe it was. Maybe it was an honest error. Maybe it was all fixed like she said it was.
 
And maybe that would be believable were Riverside County not a swing county trending light blue with very close election results — and there was not this backstory about this registrar’s handling of elections — in 2016 and 2020.
 
Seems Spencer does this double-ballot mailing a lot.
 
Back in 2020, controversy erupted about … double ballots mailed out to voters by Spencer, and other shenanigans dating from 2016 and 2020.
 
Starting with the 2020 election, this local KESQ interview with a non-Soros district attorney, battling allegations from Spencer about election “interference” merely for investigating citizen reports about voter registrations being switched to the other party (The machine-generated transcription is a bit wobbly but it’s worth reading every word):

It’s been a bitter back and forth between Riverside County’s Registrar of Voters, Rebecca Spencer, and District Attorney Mike Hestrin.
 
Spencer has accused Hestrin, of interfering with the 2020 election but Hestrin says the claims are unfounded.
 
Hestrin spoke with News Channel 3’s Peter Daut spoke to hear what he calls “a misunderstanding.”
 
Peter: “First off, tell us about this dispute between you and the County Registrar of Voters Rebecca Spencer over the security of ballots and her accusation that you showed quote unacceptable partisan behavior.”
 
Hestrin: “Okay, well, let me, let me tell you my opinion on this dispute this back and forth, is that it comes from a misunderstanding of the role of District Attorney of my office.
 
As it relates to election integrity. Our role is completely reactive and what I mean by that is we respond to citizen complaints as they come up. And I can tell you that you know for example back in 2016, we received numerous citizen complaints from Democrats, Republicans and independents, that they had had their voter information changed in some way that they’re, you know, prior to Election Day 2016 that unbeknownst to them and without their approval, their their registration had been changed. So we opened an investigation into that we looked into it. And we quickly found that it apparently did happen to several dozen voters in Riverside County. And let me just skip ahead then to the next election 2018, where we had numerous complaints that our county registrar voter office was not accurately correctly, requiring ballot harvesters to identify themselves on the ballot.
 
Finally, in 2020, election and we also happened in 2016, but we dealt with multiple complaints by voters of all parties, about receiving multiple balance.

The money quote is here:
 
Peter: “I want to ask you about some of her specific allegations she alleges among other things that you demanded she removed a ballot Dropbox outside the registers headquarters in Riverside allow undercover agents at polling places and make her staff photograph the license plates of people who drop off multiple ballots but refused to identify themselves, is any of that remotely true?

Hestrin: “All those things were taken out of context, we had a meeting and a conversation where we presented to the Registrar of Voters and our concerns about the fact that Riverside County was not requiring harvesters to properly fill out the balance. And in that conversation Miss Spencer’s response was, what what could we possibly do. And, and myself and one of my assistants, simply throw out options.
 
You could have people photographic you could do this you could do that. We never ordered any of those things we never said oh you know you’ve got to have an undercover agent that none of that is true.
 
In that sense, so these were these were. For example, the, the help we offered at one point, Miss Spencer said well I don’t I don’t have the resources to do these things to safeguard, you know, the ballots. And we said, well, we’re glad to help. I’m sure I’m sure other county workers, people from my office could help. She quickly said you can’t have law enforcement officers near ballots and we said no of course, you know, nobody would be there in uniform but if you needed help. In case you know situation arose we’d be glad to help. That that’s how it came up so unfortunately those those comments are taking wildly out of context, and they’re forming the basis of these accusations which are not not true in any in any shape or form.”

A district attorney offered to help her safeguard the electoral integrity issues in her district and she refused to accept help, and worst still, down the interview, yelled election interference.
 
That was on a matter of ballot harvesting, switched registrations, dropbox issues, and other cheatings going on on her watch in 2020. She refused to do anything about those problems and abused a district attorney who tried to help her fix the problems.
 
There also were double ballots mailed — in 2016, as well as 2020, again on Spencer’s watch, something she refused to do anything about:

[Hestrin:] Finally, in 2020, election and we also happened in 2016, but we dealt with multiple complaints by voters of all parties, about receiving multiple [ballots].
 
In 2016, we found that more than 70 people had attempted to vote twice. So what happened was they received the mail and they requested a mail invalid received the mail invalid. You filled it out, signed it sealed it and either dropped it in the mail or brought it to a voter drop box. And then a couple days later, or a week later or two weeks later, they would receive a new ballot. Some, the vast majority of these folks were these voters were elderly. And so they when they received the new ballot they mistakenly assumed that their first ballot had been invalid or had been spoiled or maybe they had filled it out wrong. So what did they do they filled it out again signed it sealed it dropped it off, guess what, now they voted twice. We found more than 70 people that did
 
So that’s in a nutshell what we’ve been doing and, you know, unfortunately, some county officials don’t like to be these things brought to the attention to their attention but, you know, nobody no county department or no county official is beyond scrutiny or questioning and, and we’re gonna keep doing our job.”

So this person mails multiple ballots in a swing county that could go either red or blue with the election tide, and somehow we are all supposed to believe her when she says she’s got the problem fixed.

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