by Steven Felschundneff | steven@claremont-courier.com

Dozens of Claremont voters got a surprise this week when they opened their newly arrived ballots only to discover the option of voting for Claremont City Council was missing.

The crux of the issue appears to be that the council district map on the Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder’s website shows several streets in the westernmost portion of the city in District 1 that are in District 4 in the map approved by the Claremont City Council in March. This may have caused the registrar recorder to send the wrong ballots to those people.

Wednesday morning the interactive map on the county website was not working, but a screen grab obtained by the COURIER shows a sawtooth-like cutout west of Arlington Drive, Las Casas and Garey avenues that have been shifted into District 1. Other affected streets include all of Williams, Northampton, New Bedford and Florac avenues, as well as portions of Smith Drive and College Way.

In this image from the county’s website the green line is the boundary of District 4 while in the city’s map of the district extends all the way to the border with La Verne.

“We are working with the county to figure out what happened,” Public Information Officer Bevin Handel said Tuesday morning. The city started receiving calls Monday from residents who noticed that the city council election was missing from the official mail-in ballot.

Following an inquiry from the Claremont City Clerk, officials from the county said they were working on the geographic information system files to determine what happened, according to Handel.

“As soon as we know, we will let everybody else know,” Handel said. “We should have something in the next few hours.”

She confirmed the problem seems to be limited to District 4 but encourages all voters to check their ballots to ensure they are correct. Handel posted notifications on the city’s social media asking residents to check ballots.

In the midterm election on November 8, voters in District 4 will select between Aundré Johnson and Jed Leano. Voters in District 1, which is represented by Corey Calaycay, do not vote for council until 2024.