LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Registrar of Voters Office reported Friday on the work taking place to finalize the official canvass for Tuesday’s primary election, including counting thousands of unprocessed ballots.
Registrar Maria Valadez’s office said the results from the June 7 Statewide Direct Primary Election results are not yet final.
As is normal after an election, Valadez’s office still has thousands of ballots to process, with more expected to arrive in the mail by Tuesday.
As of June 8 report, Valadez’s office has the following ballots yet to count within the 30-day official canvass period:
• Vote-by-mail ballots: 7,523.
• Provisional ballots: 830.
• Conditional voter registration provisional ballots: 39.
• Vote-by-mail ballots that require further review for various reasons: 149.
• Grand total: 8,541.
A newly enacted law changed the deadline for elections officials to receive vote-by-mail ballots returned by mail for the June 7 primary, the elections office reported.
The new law allows county elections officials to count a vote-by-mail ballot if it is postmarked on or before Election Day and delivered to the elections office by the U.S. Postal Service or a private mail delivery company no later than seven days after Election Day, in this case, June 14.
Official canvass and vote-by-mail processing
The registrar’s office reported that there are many checks and balances when certifying the election results.
The process of certifying election results, also known as the official canvass, is mandated by state law to make sure the public can have confidence in the integrity of the final results.
Unofficial results have no bearing on the final outcome of the races and contests. Only final certified results will impact the races and contests.
Valadez reported that her staff members are working very diligently on completing all tasks required to certify the election.
Each voter’s returned vote-by-mail ballot envelope must be examined by staff to see if the signature compares with the voter’s signature on file. After the vote-by-mail voter’s information has been entered and proofed; the vote-by-mail envelopes have to be sorted by voting precinct.
Staff must verify the number of vote-by-mail processed by the voting precinct before the envelopes can be opened. Once staff balances, the envelopes can be opened. Once the ballots are removed, staff must count the number of ballots and the number of envelopes in order to make sure that all of the ballots are removed from the envelopes to be counted.
“Polls provisional ballots” are cast at the polling places on Election Day. Some of the reasons a voter is issued a provisional ballot:
• The voter’s name is listed on the active voter roster list as a vote-by-mail voter and the voter is unable to surrender his/her vote-by-mail ballot in order to be issued a polls ballot.
• The voter’s name is not printed in the roster-index, has moved and did not re-register to vote at his/her new residence address.
• A voter is voting in the wrong voting precinct and not his/her assigned voting precinct.
• A first time voter who is required to provide ID, but is unable to do so.
• The voter’s eligibility to vote cannot be determined by the poll worker.
“Conditional voter ballots” issued to a person personally visiting either the Lake County Registrar of Voters or a voting precinct no later than the close of the polls (prior to 8 p.m.) on Election Day. These voters are Lake County residents who missed the regular voter registration deadline of May 23 but they still have the option to vote in an election by conditionally registering to vote and casting a conditional ballot (same day voter registration).
Voters that were able to surrender their vote-by-mail ballot, were allowed to sign the Roster-Index and were issued a ballot at their assigned polling place, and then their voted ballot was deposited into the ballot box.
After the polls closed, the voted precinct ballots were returned to the Registrar of Voters Office and counted on election night.
In addition, all of the roster-indexes must also be examined for errors or omissions. Staff checks the ballot statement including the number of returned voted ballots against the number of voters who signed the roster-index.
Provisional and conditional voter signatures also need to match the number of voter provisional and conditional ballots.
Once this is done, staff must enter voter history from each of the roster-indexes and record it into the voting system as voter history.
For additional information call the Registrar of Voters Office at 707-263-2372 or toll-free at 888-235-6730.