Missing Ballots Are Called ‘a Mistake’

Los Angeles County district attorney investigators said there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing in the overnight disappearance of 245 ballots that were taken from a Pacoima polling station early Wednesday.

Investigator Steven A. Sowders said a group of election volunteers took the ballots from 10609 Telfair Ave. at 12:30 a.m. after telling workers there that they would take them to a collection station. However, the volunteers did not know where the station was, and kept the ballots overnight in a car trunk, he said.

One of the volunteers then delivered the ballots hours later to the Los Angeles County registrar’s office in Commerce, Sowders said.

Investigators first believed that eight people posing as election officials may have taken the ballots.

Sowders said the ballots had not been tampered with and that their temporary disappearance was “just a mistake.�