Election officials warned this past spring of potential confusion with a ballot listing 34 candidates who were in the race to replace Sen. Barbara Boxer. Under the state’s top-two primary rules, only Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris and Orange County Rep. Loretta Sanchez advanced to the Nov. 8 general election.
A variety of ballot designs were used by counties, some with more over-vote totals than others. The data analysts concluded that some of the most significant problems happened in counties that used double columns of Senate candidates on two successive ballot pages, with voters presumably thinking they were voting on more than race.
“The more complicated the design, the more likely voters were to over-vote, which caused their votes to be disqualified,” Avagyan said.
Though the missing votes would not have changed the outcome — Harris bested Sanchez by almost 1.6 million votes in the June primary — the analysis found that the Senate race stood alone in the number of over-voted ballots.