Ever wonder what happens to your ballot after it's cast?
Votes from an entire precinct in Glendale went missing for a while on Tuesday night - and might have stayed lost were it not for a couple out for an evening walk.
As they strolled, the couple, who were not identified, happened upon a box in the 1500 block of Chevy Chase Drive. It turned out to be a ballot box, said Glendale police spokesman Tom Lorenz.
Details are sketchy, but Lorenz said that the couple called police, who responded and helped the couple pick up ballots from the ground.
Dean Logan, the Registrar-Recorder of Los Angeles County, said the the ballots went flying after a poll worker set them on top of his car and then drove off, not realizing where they were.
The worker continued on his way, driving to a check-in center at Glendale City Hall, where the votes were to be sent on to the county registrar's office in Norwalk to be counted.
He parked his car, got out, and was horrified to realize that he didn't have the ballots, Logan said.
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The pollworker rushed back to the neighborhood around Chevy Chase Drive, where he saw some of the ballots strewn across the road. He frantically picked them up, but the box itself was nowhere to be found.
Just then, officials at registrar's office got a phone call from the Glendale Police, Logan said, saying that they had the box.
Between the ballots that the poll worker found and the ones police picked up, officials were able to account for all of the votes from that precinct, Logan said. There had been 350 ballots in the box, he said.
"We take the custody and transport of voted ballots very seriously and we reacted swiftly to retrieve and secure these ballots," Logan said. "Likewise, the poll worker, the Glendale residents and the Glendale Police all reacted with great care and prudence."
His office had earlier downplayed the incident.
“Accidents happen," said one of his spokeswomen, media associate Angie Comer. "It’s a non-issue. We retrieved every ballot and are in the process of counting all of the ballots.”
