The union representing California state attorneys, administrative law judges and legal professionals is redoing its election after a review turned up several flaws, including the possibility that members could vote more than once.

The CASE Election Committee sent out a memo to bargaining unit members on Monday, informing them that the election is being canceled and that a new election will be called “by a truly independent, disinterested entity, with no involvement of CASE staff, and one not subject to double-voting.”

“The committee determined this was the only fair remedy for the serious flaws in the process,” the memo went on to say.

The CASE Election Committee, made up of CASE board members whose seats are not currently up for election, emphasized that no candidate had any advance knowledge of the investigation into the election’s procedural flaws, and that “we hasten to add that no candidate has done anything improper.”

According to the memo, while preparing to respond to a candidate inquiry about the extent to which CASE staff or leadership has access to voting results, the committee learned that one staff member had access to the live, running totals of the votes for each candidate.

“This is entirely improper. As designed, a designated staffer was supposed to have limited access to the system so as to enter new email addresses when members called to say they never received a ballot, upon which the system would then send a new ballot to the new address,” according to the memo.

The staffer was not supposed to be able to access vote totals, the committee said in the memo.

After learning of the flaw, the committee launched an investigation, which found that the staffer immediately disclosed the fact that she had access to vote information, and that she had not shared the vote totals with anyone.

The investigation further revealed that the union and the company it hired to conduct the election could not ensure that a member voted only once.

“And while there is no evidence that anyone voted twice, the fact that the election could be subject to accusations of ‘ballot-box stuffing’ seriously undermines any confidence in the outcome,” the memo said.

The investigation also found that the committee had access to generic voting turnout information which other members could not access.

“However, it was determined that this information — though generic — could potentially be used by members of the election committee who might be campaigning for other board colleagues who were up for election,” the memo read.

According to the memo, CASE has retained a new election company and is working to develop a ballot, which will go to members for a vote by Nov. 8. Members have until Nov. 17 at 5 p.m. to return their new ballots.

“We are truly sorry for the inconvenience and the delay this will cause. And, we offer our sincere apologies to all of the candidates who undoubtedly put great effort into getting out votes, only to have to do that again. As unfortunate as that is, it affects all candidates equally; everyone goes back to the status quo ante and gets a fair opportunity to compete in a fair election untarnished by the multiple procedural and security defects that were present in the former election company’s system. For CASE to be a strong and effective advocate for its members, it is absolutely critical that all members have confidence in the integrity of its election process,” the memo read.

This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 5:25 AM.