Officials in Humboldt County, California, have discovered 596 unopened ballots from last November’s special election still sealed at the bottom of a locked voting drop box.

The discovery came months after the election was certified and the ballots were legally supposed to have been destroyed.

The ballots were cast in the November statewide special election focused on Proposition 50, the redistricting measure heavily promoted by Governor Gavin Newsom and Democratic leaders.

Prop 50 was designed to create even more Democratic advantages in the state’s congressional and legislative maps by giving the party-controlled legislature more power over redistricting.

The measure passed by more than three million votes statewide, so these uncounted ballots alone would not have altered the final result. However, the discovery raises serious questions about how many other votes may have been overlooked in California’s mail-in and drop-box-dominated system.

According to the Humboldt County Office of Elections, the ballots were left behind because of a basic but inexcusable staff error.

An election worker failed to properly empty the drop box after polls closed, and the box was then locked with the ballots still inside.

The mistake was only discovered during a routine inventory check earlier this month, long after the election had been certified on December 5.

Humboldt County Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters Juan Pablo Cervantes gave a statement to the Los Angeles Times, taking full responsibility.

“That outcome is unacceptable and runs counter to the core of what this office stands for,” Cervantes said. “While the mistake occurred after an election worker did not follow proper procedures, the responsibility for what happened ultimately sits with me.”

County officials said the sealed ballots showed no signs of tampering. They have now contacted the California Secretary of State’s office to determine the proper legal steps for handling the late-discovered ballots, even though state law required them to be destroyed six months after certification.

In response to the situation, Humboldt County has already rolled out new safety measures, including a “lock out, tag out” protocol that requires every drop box to be physically verified as empty before final results are certified.

“I promise you that we are taking this seriously,” Cervantes added. “We will strengthen our processes and continue pushing toward the standard our community expects and deserves.”

President Donald Trump and Republican leaders have repeatedly highlighted the state’s universal mail-in voting, widespread drop boxes, and loose chain-of-custody rules as “ripe for fraud.”

The LA Times reports:

The discovery comes as California continues to be under a microscope for allegations of voter fraud.

Within minutes of polls opening for California’s special election in November, President Trump took to Truth Social to claim that the Proposition 50 vote — which redrew several congressional districts to favor Democratic candidates — was rigged.

“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump wrote.

When asked later that day to explain Trump’s claims on how the election was allegedly rigged, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said California has “a universal mail-in voting system, which we know is ripe for fraud.” She also accused the state of counting ballots from undocumented immigrants.

Humboldt County, a large rural county with roughly 136,000 residents, has experienced election issues in the past.

In 2008, the county’s software failed to count 197 ballots from a single precinct, the LA Times report noted.

The post California County Discovers 596 Unopened Ballots Hidden in Locked Drop Box Months After Special Election Allowing Democrats to Redistrict appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.