Last month, East Bay Times columnist Daniel Borenstein discovered an administration error for  an upcoming Oakland, California school board election – which caused all declared candidates to be disqualified from the race. County officials had provided incorrect district boundaries to prospective candidates. As such, no candidates living in the correct district submitted enough signatures from the correct section of the city to qualify for the November ballot. 

This simple human error comes on the heels of several other errors in Oakland, including one where officials selected the wrong setting on their vote tabulator for a ranked choice voting race, and one where officials provided incorrect filing deadlines to candidates. 

Human errors happen in elections no matter the jurisdiction or what voting method is used, as an error in a Monmouth County, New Jersey school board contest proved earlier this year.  It’s important to catch and correct errors quickly – ideally by giving the public the opportunity to review election administration plans months before the election actually takes place. Cities, counties, and states should take proactive steps to do so. 

Thankfully, Alameda County (home to Oakland) recently established an Elections Oversight Commission for this very purpose, which will begin working once a quorum of members are appointed. As County Supervisor Keith Carson explained:

While the vast majority of results are correct, as the County experienced during last year’s election, errors do occur. Trust in our electoral process is at the heart of our democracy; by establishing this commission, we are ensuring that this process will be more transparent and that issues impacting voting access and vote tabulation will be addressed and corrected in a timely manner.

All elections benefit from accountability and transparency measures. We applaud Alameda County for establishing an Elections Oversight Commission to improve their election administration with an extra layer of transparency and accountability.