Some Claremont residents visiting the polls this morning are learning their names aren’t on the voter rolls.

City Clerk Shelley Desautels, who visited several polling locations this morning, said the city and county are aware of the issue.

Dean Logan, the county clerk from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office, offered an explanation via Twitter.

“This is a random issue with the print job that ran the paper rosters and does not affect your status as a registered voter,” Mr. Logan tweeted. “We apologize for the inconvenience of the provisional ballot; however it will count and we will resolve the issue for November.”

The registrar-recorder’s office did not indicate how many voters may have been affected, but Ms. Desautels emphasizes that the city and county are working together to solve the issues.

“We have spoken with the assistant division manager at the county. They are aware there are some issues with names not appearing on the roster,” she said.

Ms. Desautels urges residents who know they are registered and are at their correct polling place to vote provisionally.

“Vote provisionally, because if you are where you know you should be, registrants can be verified by the county after the election,” she explained. “And keep your receipt.”

At the request of a handful of Claremont voters, the city clerk said she was able to verify voters’ status on the LA County Voter Information Management System (VIMS), an online database available at no cost to cities.

“We have access to that and we’ve been able to check and verify they are registered and their [provisional] vote will be counted,” she said.

Some registered voters are finding their status has been unknowingly changed to vote-by-mail. Should a voter arrive at the polls to find they were put on vote-by-mail status there are two options: 1) locate the vote-by-mail ballot received in the mail and turn it in to the poll worker or 2) vote provisionally.

A provisional ballot is a regular ballot that is placed in a special envelope prior to being put in the ballot box. These ballots are counted after the county verifies that the individual is registered to vote in that county and that he or she did not vote twice. Provisional votes could swing the Measure SC election, depending on how widespread the issue is in Claremont.

“This is unusual and we don’t quite know what it is yet,” Ms. Desautels said. “The division manager said they are looking into it. We have yet to get an update from them, but we will get the information on the city website and Facebook as soon as possible.”

In the meantime, voters are encouraged to double-check their polling location on their ballots prior to heading to the polls. If a voter turns up at the wrong location, he or she will not be listed on the roster. Visit https://www.lavote.net/locator and enter your address to confirm your polling location.

If you do vote provisionally, visit http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-status/ after the election to find out if your vote was counted.

It can take the LA County Registrar-Recorder up to 30 days to certify results from an election, particularly if there is an increased number of provisional ballots to verify.

—Kathryn Dunn

editor@claremont-courier.com