The ballot printing service that botched the ballots for the primary election in Mendocino County has lost its certification as a ballot printer in the State of California, according to a letter from the Secretary of State dated May 17th. The company contends that it did not violate state code, and has indicated that it’s preparing to litigate.
Katrina Bartolomie, the Assessor Clerk Recorder Registrar of Voters, reported to the Board of Supervisors Tuesday. She added that, “We have been in talks with a couple other California certified ballot printers…We are working on that, and have been working on that.”
Integrated Voting Systems, the vendor Bartolomie has been working with for fifteen years, sent over 52,000 incorrectly printed ballots for the March primary election to Mendocino County voters in February. Integrated sent out replacement ballots at no extra cost to the county. But then 177 voters received ballots for the wrong district, because the voter rolls had not been fully updated following the 2020 census. Those voters received another round of replacement ballots, meaning some people, like George McCord in Redwood Valley, got a total of three ballots. And some, like Dolly Brown in Redwood Valley, who is not a Republican, only ever got the first ballot. “I certainly didn’t get a replacement ballot,” she told us the day before Super Tuesday. “Yeah. It’s a mess.”
In the end, 45.5% of the eligible voters in Mendocino County cast a ballot. It was not a smooth process.
On February 5, Integrated Voting Systems, the contractor the county uses for its all mail-in elections, sent Republican ballots for the first supervisorial district to every registered voter in the county.
According to Weber’s letter and a county press release, Integrated hired a third-party vendor to add tint and watermark images to the ballot layout. That individual uploaded a test file image of the first district GOP ballot, which Integrated then printed and sent out, instead of the correct live ballot images. The State Department’s letter says that “Integrated Voting Solutions’ internal quality control check did not catch the issue because the header fields, watermark and barcodes on all of the ballots were displaying correctly.” The letter is addressed to Integrated Voting Systems, Inc, doing business as Integrated Voting Solutions.
The name change followed a business shake-up at the company, which has botched elections in other parts of the western United States.
In 2018, after Integrated sent the wrong ballots to voters in Montrose County, Colorado, forcing a manual recount, The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, Colorado investigated the company. The paper found that at that time, Integrated Voting Systems shared employees, addresses and clientele with another company called Integrated Voting Solutions, which had declared bankruptcy. According to the Sentinel, the owners, Eric and Ronda Kozlowski, had over $15 million in debt, including taxes and lawsuit settlements. The paper found that the couple’s teenaged daughter founded Integrated Voting Systems, which does business in several states.
In 2020, according to The Salt Lake Tribune, Integrated Voting Systems sent out 13,000 ballots with missing signature lines to voters in Sanpete County, Utah. That article also reported a similar error in a municipal election in Sevier County. Last year, the Pikes Peak Courier reported that Integrated Voting Systems sent out 14,812 incorrect ballots to voters in Teller County, Colorado.
And last year, a representative from another ballot printing service alerted Bartolomie that California’s Fresno County had broken its contract with Integrated, due to the company’s “spotty record” in other states. Bartolomie sent an article about the decision to her contact at Integrated, who does not appear to have responded via email.
Now, Shirley Weber, the California Secretary of State, has fined Integrated a thousand dollars and revoked its status as a certified ballot printer, saying the company committed two violations. Weber wrote that Integrated violated the state elections code by failing to notify her office about the ballot printing error within two business days. Instead, Bartolomie contacted the state, which then requested an account from Integrated about what had happened. Amanda Wolter, the Mendocino County Assistant Clerk Recorder Registrar of Voters, sent an email to an Integrated representative at 4:38 in the afternoon of February 7, alerting her that voters were reporting they had gotten the wrong ballots. The county notified the Secretary of State the next day, and Rodney Rodriguez, from the Secretary of State’s office, contacted Integrated the same day.
Integrated had more than one glitch with a sub-contractor, according to Weber’s letter. Because of a late delivery from the vendor responsible for providing the envelopes, Integrated sent out replacement ballots on Tuesday, February 13, four days later than was originally planned.
Weber wrote that Integrated also violated the California Code of Regulations by failing to notify her office about its use of the third-party vendor to apply the ballot tints and watermarks on the ballots. She wrote that, “this third-party vendor was not certified by the Secretary of State to perform any part of the ballot printing process for California ballots.”
Integrated disagrees with the Secretary of State’s action, and appears prepared to fight it.
Eric Kozlowski, the CEO of Integrated, shared a letter the company’s legal counsel sent to Weber, a response which is, “Pending the involvement of litigation counsel for IVS to formally object to such revocation.” The attorney, Robyn Esraelian, asserted that, “IVS provided a written response to the Secretary of State on Friday, February 9, 2024. This response was submitted within 48 hours of the time IVS became aware of the issue and constituted the required written notification to the Secretary of State under California Elections Code…I submit that the conduct of IVS in this matter does not violate the California Elections Code.” The letter also objects to the use of the term “third party vendor,” saying the individual in charge of the watermarks and ballot tints is a contracted IVS employee named Justin Elder, who works under IVS’ certification.
Having argued that there is no violation, Esraelian concluded by “request(ing) that the California Secretary of State retract its May 17, 2024 revocation of IVS’ status as a certified ballot printer for California.”
go back to in person voting …no more mail in ballots…no dominion voting machines.
I still go in person and bitch about mail in voting. The lines are short
Nearly all votes made in Mendo are mail in ballots. No one is stopping people from coming into a voting booth. Mendo has a MGMT problem and this is just another reflection of that problem.
Well it would be nice if poll workers at the Willits City Hall didn’t start closing up shop at 6:30pm as the confusion of closed primary forced me to switch parties to vote my mind and upon arrival one precinct had closed while the one I vote at was in process with 2 poll workers. I also had to argue with poll workers to get correct party ballot as they wanted to go of provided party book and much to the dismay of my father was forced to use registering table as his wheelchair bound voting place in plain public view. My grandmother along with a group of friends ran the precinct that was closed election night for 15 years and while I’m normally unable to get time off work to work at a precinct for which I would receive 1/4 day pay for 1.5 days work from early morning till night, I will be taking a vacation day to do so in November. Voting is contentious these days and ballot misprints and poll worker walkout only makes it worse.
You lost down the qanon rabbit hole floyd.
61 court cases filed “promoting” the idea of election meddling, 61 cases laughed out of court for a total lack of evidence.
Have you read even 1 of the filing docs on those cases?
They are despicably absent of legal rigor.
Even non-lawyers can easily poke holes in those cases.
This is why so many of the lawyers who filed those cases are getting disbarred for lying to the courts in contrvention to the their oaths as lawyers.
It’s really hard to breathe when your head is buried up trump’s ass
wow …guessing you got a lot of “daddy” wounds, maybe beat up a lot as a child because of who you appear to be maybe, just a guess. spare us your long-winded narcissistic response. nobody really wants to hear your bravo sierra. i merely proposes a solution. you on the other handed presented your hateful satanic spew.
one more point. “61 court cases filed “promoting” the idea of election meddling, 61 cases laughed out of court for a total lack of evidence.”
…more like those cases were denied a hearing. ergo never got the chance for a so called laughing out of court when they were never even heard. your ignorance or perhaps outright lies are remarkable…. but then again so is satan. you all must be related.
I got my replacement ballot early April
There’s another big election coming up this fall.
The “working on that” will have to be finalized soon.
Katrina said she would quit if anything happened to them and stood by them. Did she quit yet? I am hearing crickets from her on that empty threat. Do us a favor and follow through with it. Time to decentralize Assessor Clerk Recorder! Get some younger people with technical minds.
I agree. This is an elected position and will likely garner someone who has plenty of time and money to run a campaign. In Mendo, neither of those things most young people possess. You’ll probably see the assistant assessor win in an undisputed future election for this office. Just like the DA, Sheriff, and Auditor (now appointed).
Not impressed with KAREN Bartlomei’s response to this major issue. Seemed to shrug it off as no big deal. Her response to reporter Sarah Reith’s inquiries was ridiculous. Kickbacks from printer? We’ll never know the implication that this screw up had on voter turnout in regards to District 1 & 2 elections. Is it too much to ask that the elected official proof and sign-off the product before mailing?