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# Nearly 50,000 primary votes won’t count
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/nearly-50-000-primary-votes-wont-count/
- Published: 2008-02-13T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T23:12:52.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Government & Politics, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By DAILY PRESS STAFF*

An estimated 49,500 votes were cast incorrectly in Los Angeles County by nonpartisan voters in the presidential primaries and cannot be counted because the voters' intentions are unclear, acting Registrar Recorded Dean Logan said Monday.

The mismarked ballots were the result of a confusing ballot design and poor education of poll workers and the public, Logan said. That left many decline-to-state voters unaware of the need to fill in a bubble indicating whether they were voting in the Democratic Party or American Independent Party primary.

Logan said the lost votes would not affect the outcome of the presidential races or the allocation of Democratic Party delegates by congressional district because in each case the margins were too large.

Results from a non-partisan ballot review shows over 140,000 of the 189,438 non-partisan ballots cast on Feb. 5, were cast correctly.

The review and analysis of a statistically relevant sampling of non-partisan ballots cast in 48 precincts was conducted to quickly quantify the occurrence of non-partisan voters who more likely than not intended to cross-over and cast a ballot for a Democratic or American Independent Party Presidential candidate — and to differentiate those ballots from those where the voter clearly elected to vote an exclusively non-partisan ballot.

“The results do, however, indicate that more than two thirds of all non-partisan voters executed their votes appropriately. Despite this finding, it is undoubtedly clear that Los Angeles County must find a remedy for simplifying its cross-over voting procedures before the upcoming June 3, 2008 Statewide Primary Election,” Logan said. “I will call upon voters, pollworkers and stakeholders alike to join the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk in identifying the most effective and least confusing method of achieving this remedy.”

The complete Non-Partisan Ballot Review and Analysis is available on the RR/CC website, www.lavote.net.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 13, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/021308.pdf?ref=smdp.com)