What We Know About the L.A. County Primary Election 'Glitch'

It’s been a tough couple of days for Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan, the county's top elections officer.

On Tuesday, about 118,000 names were missing from voter rosters at precincts around the county, causing confusion and anger.

On Wednesday, Logan was called before the county supervisors to account for what happened.

So what do we know about what happened at the polls?

People began complaining in the morning that when they visited their polling locations to vote, their names were not included on the precinct rolls. This happened even though they were properly registered.

It quickly became clear that the county had a widespread problem. If people were affected, they were supposed to be offered provisional ballots that allow people to vote. Once eligibility is verified, the ballots are counted.

What's the explanation for the 'glitch'?

Elections officials issued a statement pointing to a printing error for the problem, but details of how that error happened haven't yet been determined.

The Board of Supervisors called on Logan Wednesday to further explain how the "glitch" happened. Several of the supervisors were clearly upset and expressed deep disappointment.

"We need to know what happened," said Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. She said while there is potential for bugs with computer systems, "we got several different explanations for why people’s names were not on these rosters."

Kuehl was also upset that the supervisors weren’t notified immediately of the problems.

Logan apologized for falling short. "I understand the gravity of it," he said.

But he defended his communication about the issue, saying he was doing media interviews and keeping the public apprised of the issues.

Election officials said anyone affected could vote provisionally until their information could be checked. Do we know if everyone entitled to a provisional ballot actually received one?

That’s not entirely clear -- and there were reports that some voters were turned away, unable to vote.

This is an issue that gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa raised at his campaign election party last night as he fell behind in the vote count. But by the end of the evening, it was clear that the problem would not affect the results, and he conceded the race.

Logan said while his office is still investigating the issue, he doesn’t have a way to track people who showed up but did not vote.

"If there were voters who were frustrated by being offered a provisional ballot and chose not to do that, I’m not saying that that didn’t happen. I don’t have a way to quantify that. We know that there were a substantial number of provisional ballots cast," he said.

In addition, Kuehl said one of her staff members whose name was missing from the rosters had to ask five times for a provisional ballot before she finally got one.

She called for more training of poll workers as well as more workers who are bilingual.

What will election officials do next, and how can they prevent similar problems from happening again?

Logan says he’s working to expedite the processing of the provisional ballots that were given to voters affected. He said a good number of the ballots should be counted by Friday.

As for how election officials will prevent this from happening again, that should be laid out in a report to the supervisors in the days ahead. There are still many open questions about how a problem of this scale could have occurred.

My name was missing from the rolls at my polling place. How can I find out if the provisional ballot I cast is actually counted?

If you’re one of the voters who experienced this problem, the county registrar's office says it is expediting the process of counting the provisional ballots.

The registrar's office does have an online tool that allows voters to check their ballot status, but it is not currently set up to track for Tuesday's election.