Humboldt County finds 596 uncounted ballots in locked drop box after election

Humboldt County election workers found 596 sealed ballots still inside a locked ballot drop box on Monday, May 4, a mistake officials say will not change any result from the November 4, 2025 Statewide Special Election.

The county said the ballots should have been counted before certification on December 5, 2025. Even so, Humboldt and the California Secretary of State have both confirmed the uncounted ballots are not close enough to alter the outcome. In Humboldt County’s final tally, Proposition 50 passed 64.02% to 35.98%, with 30,415 yes votes and 17,093 no votes, and the county reported 47,540 of 86,017 registered voters participated, a 55.27% turnout.

Officials said the ballots were sealed and the drop box was locked, with no evidence they had been tampered with. The county said the mistake appears to have come from a miscommunication during the drop-box check process, when staff believed the box had been fully emptied but it had not. That breakdown now raises sharper questions about chain-of-custody procedures and who verified that every valid ballot had been recovered before the results were signed off and certified.

Humboldt County Clerk-Recorder & Registrar of Voters Juan Pablo Cervantes said he was informed around 6 p.m. Monday that a ballot drop box from the November 2025 special election for Prop 50 had not been fully emptied. Cervantes said the error was unacceptable and that responsibility ultimately sits with him because controls were not strong enough to prevent it.

The county said Elections Code section 17302 requires ballots from the November 4, 2025 Statewide Special Election to be destroyed six months after certification, but Humboldt intends to pursue every legal avenue available to get the ballots counted rather than simply destroy them. The office has already changed its procedures, putting in place a lock-out, tag-out style verification process that requires each box to be physically checked and secured before results are finalized.

The episode lands at a sensitive moment for election administration in California. As Humboldt confronts how 596 ballots remained locked away after the election was certified, county officials are also processing the next statewide voting cycle, when ballots for the June 2, 2026 primary began going out on May 4 and secure ballot drop-off locations opened May 5. For Humboldt voters, the immediate stakes are less about changing last year’s result than about whether the county can prove every ballot will be handled correctly next time.