Humboldt County counts 596 missed ballots after special election error

Humboldt County’s first corrected look at the November special election showed Proposition 50 still passing by 13,322 votes, even after officials found 596 uncounted sealed ballots in a locked ballot drop box and moved to recertify the race.

County election staff discovered the ballots on Monday, May 4, 2026, inside a locked Humboldt County ballot drop box. Officials said the ballots had not been tampered with because the box was locked and the ballots were sealed. The county traced the mistake to a miscommunication among election workers over whether the drop box had already been fully emptied.

Juan Pablo Cervantes, Humboldt County’s clerk-recorder and registrar of voters, said the responsibility rested with him. The county and the California Secretary of State both said counting the ballots would not change the election outcome, but Humboldt still went to Superior Court to make sure the votes were counted before they could be destroyed under Elections Code §17302, which requires ballots from that election to be destroyed six months after certification. The court granted the county’s petition to count the ballots and recertify the election.

The county has already changed its procedures. Under the new lock out, tag out process, staff must physically verify that each ballot drop box is empty and secured before results are finalized. That safeguard now sits at the center of Humboldt’s answer to a basic public question: whether the county can be trusted to close an election accurately after missing nearly 600 ballots.

The stakes were heightened by the unusually compressed schedule for the statewide special election. Cervantes said Humboldt normally gets six to seven months to prepare for a statewide special election, but the 2025 contest gave counties only about two and a half months. He also said the election was expected to cost at least $700,000 in Humboldt County alone, with the state covering those expenses under election law.

Even with the error, the county’s certified numbers show a clear result. Proposition 50 finished with 30,415 yes votes and 17,093 no votes, out of 47,508 cast votes. Turnout reached 55.27 percent, with 47,540 of 86,017 registered voters participating. The missed ballots now appear destined to be folded into the final record, but the larger test for election officials is whether Humboldt voters believe the county’s new safeguards are strong enough to keep it from happening again.