You found your mail-in ballot between the pizza coupons and the power bill, researched the candidates and propositions, marked your choices and now you’re ready to send it off to be counted.
But this year, with President Donald Trump and lawmakers in Washington freaking everybody out about possible fraud and trouble voting, even the most seasoned voters are worrying about what happens next.
Is the mail really reliable? Can that drop-box in front of the library be trusted? How do election officials make sure my vote isn’t hacked by the Russians or that my shifty-looking neighbor doesn’t get to vote twice?
Welcome to the Journey of a California Ballot. In the spirit of Schoolhouse Rock, the Bay Area News Group has produced a special election video that lets you tag along to see what happens to your vote.
California’s election officials and post office insist they’re making the ballot’s trip as smooth as possible.
“From beginning to end, there are security measures in place to ensure vote by mail is safe,” California Chief Deputy Secretary of State James Schwab said during a recent voting webinar hosted by the University of California Advocacy Network. “Voter fraud is extremely rare and isolated.”
And indeed, no credible analysis to date has found evidence of fraud in the numbers needed to swing even a razor-close U.S. election.
Here’s how mail-in voting works in California and what’s different this year amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The surge in mail-in ballots
More than 21.2 million Californians — roughly 85% of the eligible population of the Golden State — had registered to vote as of Sept. 4. That’s the highest percentage registered ahead of a general election in the past 68 years. It’s also more than the entire populations of every state in the country but Texas and — barely — Florida.
And because of the pandemic, every active registered voter in California will automatically receive a ballot — printed on watermarked paper at a facility certified by the state — in the mail this year, meaning they won’t have to go to a polling place. Translation: Lots of ballots for the postal service to deliver.
Last presidential election, roughly 58% of Californians who voted did so by mail.
In a few states, like Oregon, mail-in voting was the norm before the coronavirus. But in other states, millions of people who typically vote in person have requested mail-in ballots, and many of them will have to follow strict rules that voter advocacy groups worry could cause confusion and invalid ballots. In Pennsylvania, for instance, voters need to put their ballot in an envelope and then into another envelope to vote correctly. Only one envelope is required in California, but voters here have to be sure to sign it before they send it on its way.
Is the post office up for the job?
The U.S. Postal Service delivers 433 million pieces of mail across the country every day, so Augustine Ruiz, a Bay Area postal service spokesman, said the agency has enough capacity to handle the election mail surge.
Even if every single American got to cast a ballot and voted by mail this year, 330 million ballots over the course of the election “would be only three-quarters what the Postal Service delivers in one single day,” Ruiz said.
But with the coronavirus causing postal delays, California has adjusted to minimize the risk to your vote. The state will count ballots that arrive as late as Nov. 20 if they’re postmarked by Nov. 3 — Election Day — or earlier. That means mail carriers will have two more weeks than normal (it’s usually just a few days) to deliver completed ballots.
Drop-boxes and voting sites
Most counties across California also have dozens of in-person voting sites and ballot drop boxes. But even those alternatives sparked confusion last week when the state ordered Republican Party officials in Fresno, Orange and Los Angeles counties to remove “unauthorized” ballot drop boxes placed outside party offices, churches and gun shops.
The state authorized boxes are clearly marked “Official Ballot Drop Box” along with the county’s name. If you drop your ballot in one of those boxes through Election Day, a courier will deliver it to your registrar. If you still aren’t comfortable letting go, you can take your ballot straight to the registrar’s office yourself.
What if you lose your ballot?
Didn’t receive your ballot yet? Better check your registration status at voterstatus.sos.ca.gov You have until Oct. 19 — that’s Monday — to register to vote by mail in California. If you’re already registered but misplace your ballot or don’t receive one, you have until Oct. 27 to request a new ballot.
How your ballot is verified
Once your ballot arrives at the registrar’s office, a machine scans the bar code on the envelope to sort it into the right precinct. The machine and a human also verify your signature on the envelope against the one on file.
If they detect a problem — say you finally dropped the heart-dotted “i” last year — your ballot goes into a “challenged” pile. But don’t worry. Workers will try to contact you to “cure” the problem, which could mean asking you to fill out a form to update your signature on file.
Election officials routinely review vital records to purge their voter rolls, too, so the system should catch your shifty neighbor if he tries to fill out a ballot for his dead uncle.
Time to tally your vote
Once the ballots are sorted, staffers open them, working near others so no one is ever alone with a ballot. The registrar used to have to wait until two weeks before Election Day to open the envelopes, but with an expected surge in mail-in voting this year, they’re now allowed to start 29 days out — or “E minus 29” in registrar parlance.
“The sooner you can get your ballot in, the better it’s going to be in terms of counting,” Rick Hasen, a UC Irvine political science professor and election expert, said. “Vote early.”
The ballots ride through a counting machine that logs votes into a secure system. It’s not online so Russian hackers can’t change the results. Access is limited to a few staffers. Once your ballot is counted, it’s stored in a locked, monitored facility. If there’s a contested race, officials can go straight to the source to make sure the results are kosher.
And every county must hand count 1% of its ballots as a test, to make sure the machines are counting votes accurately.
Want to see it for yourself?
Some counties allow residents to watch the ballot counting in action.
“We have windows where observers can watch,” said Evelyn Mendez, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara County registrar’s office. “We get a lot of people that want to see it.”
You can also track your ballot online to see when it arrives and when it’s counted at wheresmyballot.sos.ca.gov. It’s a little like watching your Uber Eats order make its way to your door. But instead of dinner, you get democracy.
When will we get results and why they might change?
The initial results go live just after 8 p.m. on Nov. 3 and are updated for weeks as more ballots arrive. After every ballot is counted, the registrar must certify the results by Dec. 3.
In some tight races, experts say, early results may look like a Republican is winning a particular race because GOP voters traditionally vote earlier. As ballots that arrive later are counted, a Democrat may pull ahead, though, which happened in some closely watched Southern California congressional races in 2018.
“This is not because of fraud, or because of incompetence, it’s because of volume,” Hasen said, urging people not to be fooled by misinformation campaigns aimed at sparking panic. “It’s because of the volume. It just takes a really long time. … People are going to need to have patience.”
