Families outraged after dead loved ones in Los Angeles received primary election ballots

Ballots continued to arrive in the mailboxes of deceased Californians ahead of this year’s primary election, despite repeated efforts by relatives to notify officials and provide proof of death, The California Post has learned.

Los Angeles resident Steve Brown followed every instruction election officials gave him after his wife, Lisa Brown, died in 2021. Steve reported her death, submitted paperwork and even sent a copy of her death certificate, he told The Post.

Yet five years later, election mail still arrives in Lisa’s name, at an address the couple left years ago. The repeated mailings have left Brown angry, exhausted and increasingly skeptical of a system he says he has spent years trying to correct.

“It’s a lot of work,” Brown told The Post. “You do what they tell you to do, and the ballot still comes.”

A review by The Post confirmed Lisa’s registration remained active in the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s voter database.

A 2025 review of 2 million active California voter registrations by the Public Interest Legal Foundation identified 94,516 registrants flagged as deceased through comparisons with the Social Security Death Index and obituary records.

The review also found 57,725 potential duplicate voter registrations across state lines, 3,104 same-address duplicate registrations and 7,677 voter records containing placeholder or fictitious birth dates.

“If they can’t get something this basic right, it makes you wonder what else isn’t right,” Brown told The Post. The repeated mailings also reopen old wounds.

“It hurts,” Brown said.

Pia Altavilla said she continues receiving election ballots for both her late husband, who died unexpectedly two years ago, and her father, Francesco Altavilla, who died five years ago.

She questioned why voter records are not automatically updated when someone dies.

“It’s disappointing that voter rolls are not cross-checked with Social Security,” Altavilla said.

“From a widow standpoint, revisiting the ballot is triggering,” she said. “When you see something like this, it brings up emotions.”

Alex Reynolds said she encountered the same problem after her mother died on July 24, 2025.

The family filed her death certificate immediately, Reynolds said, making it all the more surprising when a ballot arrived months later.

“It’s concerning,” Reynolds said. “I started looking into it right away. We filed everything we were supposed to. I don’t have time to keep following up on this.”

Reynold told The Post she has been reaching out to others and looking into this more. And, like the others, Reynolds said the ballot was also an emotional reminder of her loss.

“It’s heart-wrenching,” Reynolds said. “I cry every day about my mom’s stuff.”

Nico Ruderman, who previously led the recall campaign against former Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin on the Westsdie, said the issue raises broader questions about voter roll maintenance regardless of political affiliation.

“There are parties who don’t like narrowing down the voter roll,” Ruderman told The Post. “The bigger the voter roll, the harder it is to get a ballot initiative across,”

He said that death certificates should automatically trigger voter registration updates and questioned why voter databases are not more closely linked to federal death records and interstate registration systems.

“Death certificates should go into a database and ultimately remove people from the voter rolls,” Ruderman said.

After five years of receiving election mail addressed to his late wife, Brown said every new envelope leaves him wondering whether the system is working the way voters are told it should.

“You start questioning it,” Brown said.

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