Humboldt County to count 596 missed ballots, recertify special election

Humboldt County election officials will count 596 sealed ballots that sat uncounted after last year’s special election, then recertify the results after a judge approved the plan. The county says the ballots do not change the outcome, but the mistake exposed a breakdown in how staff tracked whether a ballot drop box had been emptied.

Humboldt County Office of Elections staff discovered the ballots inside a locked ballot drop box on Monday, May 4, 2026. County officials said the problem came from a miscommunication among election workers, who believed the box had already been emptied when it had not. The ballots were sealed, had not been tampered with and were simply missed in the county’s processing workflow.

The ballots came from the November 4, 2025 California statewide special election, which included Proposition 50, the state’s redistricting measure. Humboldt County officials and the California Secretary of State have both said the 596 ballots would not alter the final outcome. Even so, County Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters Juan Pablo Cervantes said the responsibility for the error rests with him, underscoring that this was a process failure, not an integrity breach.

Because state law requires ballots from that election to be destroyed six months after certification under Elections Code §17302, the county asked Humboldt County Superior Court for permission to count the ballots before they were destroyed. A judge granted the request, allowing the county to preserve the ballots, process them and re-certify the election. Officials said the county expects to complete re-certification by July 2026.

The county has also changed its procedures. Election staff must now follow a new “lock out, tag out” step for ballot drop boxes before results are finalized, a check meant to force a physical verification that each box is empty and secured. For Humboldt County, the larger issue is not the number of ballots but the trust that depends on every vote being accounted for once it reaches the county’s hands.