Is there a danger of malfeasance in counting the votes in Ventura County, California? To investigate this question, a number of Republican voters recently toured the Registrar of Voters office in the Ventura County Government Center. I participated in both these over one-hour tours and took detailed notes concurrently. Afterwards I found that information given by the officials on the tour essentially matched on both occasions in my notes as it should. I wrote a report of the tour information and sent the draft to the Public Information Officer for comment. That person eventually replied that there were numerous inaccuracies; the specific ones pointed out I found to be trivial or nitpicking. The Registrar of Voters office is considering a “video tour” to be published on the web sometime after the current election which I wholeheartedly supported as it can be scripted rather than the ad hoc commentary and answers to questions we received on the tour. Nonetheless, with THAT STRONG CAVEAT, I feel the information below strongly supports my final conclusions of the report.
Several members of staff met with us in the entry area, and introduced the Apex machine room, explaining it read and displayed the ballot envelope codes and signatures which were then verified by trained human staff; the rejection rate of signatures is < 1/2% and the thresholds for signature verification have not changed, remaining as strict as in the past. Those signatures rejected by human review result in a letter to the voter to confirm the vote and their signature on that ballot; almost all voters confirm their signature and vote, thus the low rejection rate. The sealed ballot envelopes are then taken down a hallway under camera coverage (the entire office is covered by ceiling cameras) to the Opex machine area. This machine slices open the envelopes which then are opened, and the ballots inspected and flattened and scanned in a fenced room. This scanning process uses codes on the surface of the ballots to confirm a voter's ballot has been cast as per a California state contractor database BallotTracker (which also enables automatic notification by text message or email to the individual voter of the status of their ballot). This data regarding voter name and number is on separate servers in another room. These ballots are then moved across a narrow hallway from the fenced room through a window into the ballot counting and adjudication room where the votes are "read" by HighPro Dominion machines that ARE NOT AND CANNOT be hooked up to the internet per staff insistence. How the software on these machines is maintained and updated was not discussed. All the various different machines used are subject to logic and accuracy testing shortly before an election, a process open to public observers. Any damaged ballots or misread ballots (markings in the wrong spot, candidates circled, overvoting for one office, mistakes corrected by voter, write-ins, etc.) are kicked out by the machines and adjudicated in this sealed room by at least two staff per ballot. This includes physically damaged ballots which are then duplicated and scanned to be maintained in the database. Overall counts of votes and areas of votes are available to candidates during the counting, and no ballot counting (of mail in ballots, military ballots, etc.) occurs till voting closes on November 8. All received ballots remain sealed in their envelopes until that count begins. No results in toto are released until the vote has been certified; this usually by law occurs < 30 days after the election. Votes are counted in the order received. A repeat tally of 1% of the votes occurs within 5 days of the election as an audit of overall accuracy.
A paper Master Roster no longer exists physically; previously this was used at each precinct voting site so that the election workers and observers could confirm that no duplicate voting was taking place, and so that "no shows" could be canvassed by candidates to come in to vote, or that questionable votes could be canvassed by candidates. Given that precinct voting no longer occurs, each voting center would have to review and maintain the entire roster of >505,000 registered voters and this is not feasible, thus done by laptop computer at each vote center. This change was forced by the California Voters Choice Act of 2016 and furthered by the Covid epidemic.
The Voting Roster or Roll of Registered Voters is updated daily based on information from the Secretary of State database and local notifications of deaths from County Public Health officials. This is a statewide system. If there is a conflict between state and local data, the data is entered anyway to avoid disenfranchising any voter. No localized database is maintained anymore, strictly the State database system due to VoteCal law 2018. Those incarcerated who forfeit voting rights are updated from data from the penal code/penal system. However, unless there has been a formal legal judgement regarding a voter's mental incapacity, no record of potential or possible incapacity of voters is kept or made.
Due to district-based voting There are now over 200 different versions of the ballot; these are constructed in the ROV center by the Ballot Layout and Proofing section of the staff. KNH is the contractor that prints the actual ballots. Around 505,000 ballots are printed for Ventura County, each ballot and envelope coded to an individual registered voter. The voter is identified only by their signature when they sign the ballot envelope, otherwise by codes on the envelopes and ballots that are read by the Apex and Opex and Dominion machines. Signatures matching the envelope, ballot, and registered voter are, as noted confirmed by human review.
Besides mail-in ballots to every registered voter, ballots are mailed to military registered voters 45-60 days ahead of the election via military postal service. These are received and confirmed by the same process as civilian votes. A military member can return vote by mail or by fax. If an active registered voter has a mailing address even outside the state, a ballot is mailed to that address. Remote Access Vote by Mail also exists, the voter fills out ballot on computer then prints out the ballot, signs it, and mails it in. These covers disabled, military, etc. Legally a voter can make their own ballot so long as it is mailed in via the vote by mail envelope.
Provisional ballots are used when a voter presents to a polling place to vote and the live data on the voting center laptops shows that the vote has already been received into the system. These are then adjudicated at the ROV and if indication of fraud in the original or provisional ballot is found, referral to the District Attorney's office for felony prosecution is made. When a voter brings their mail-in ballot to the vote center to use as a guide and requests a ballot, a personalized ballot is printed at that time for the voter and then their mail-in ballot is confiscated and voided.
Drop boxes are heavily physically secured to their sites and are always emptied of contents by a team of two people into a yellow bag which is then locked and transported to the vote center. The drop boxes are locked after collection and closed down at 8 pm on Election Day. There is no camera security on any of the drop boxes. Ballot harvesting is LEGAL in California thus someone may drop off many ballots at one time at the drop boxes; the ultimate security of those ballots remains verification of one ballot per registered voter and signature verification by human staff.
Mail-in Ballots that are undeliverable due to poor addresses, names, or voter no longer at that address are returned to sender (the ROV). The ROV then sends out 2-3 postcards (?) to confirm the voter is no longer there and then waits 2 election cycles (4 years) before clearing the voter from the rolls. `They initially become "inactive" then eventually are moved off roll. On average the ROV processes 500 new voter registrations daily, each taking about 1" to enter.
Data from 2020 election has been preserved and can be requested in various formats.
Hiring for election workers in Ventura County goes through HR process in County; there are Stipend Workers who do not go through this process. Machines are tested/certified by the state of California and are sealed until the election. (Sealed by who, unsealed by who, when, and where are they stored?). When printers of ballots were last certified (KNH company) was unavailable.
OVERALL, the main potential problem in Ventura County MIGHT be in the accuracy of the voter rolls. I personally presented to the appropriate ROV official my adult daughter's latest sample ballot; she has received these and mail-in ballots for the last several elections despite living under her married name in Pennsylvania for almost 20 years and having re-registered there immediately. She has also done all the on-line work to get removed from the local voter rolls several times, and recently was assured by telephone with two different ROV officials that she had been removed from the rolls. Yet she remains an active potential voter in Ventura County. She has just received her Voter Sample Guide and now her Mail-In Ballot for this election, both of which I personally brought to the attention of the appropriate personnel at the ROV office. Having many samples of my daughter’s signature, I could easily have voted her ballot illegally.
I have sent specific questions about how the voter rolls are handled locally (even though this is a state database it is updated locally daily) and these, due to time pressures, could not be addressed during our tour. I will continue to research these at the State site and at Venturavote.org and hope for written response from the ROV office, recognizing they are very busy leading up to the November 8, 2022, election.
The questions are:
How many "cloned" voters are on the rolls? These are multiple registrations of the same voter. How are these detected and eliminated?
How many "inactive voters" are on the rolls, and what constitutes an inactive voter? How and how often are these eliminated from the rolls?
How many "inadequate voter registrations" exist, and how are they handled?
Are the above categories maintained on a database or on separate databases, and can voters on these databases be moved back onto the active voter registration database? By whom, and under what circumstances?
What specifics cause a voter registration to be removed from the active voter rolls, and what happens to this registration data?
How are duplicate registrations detected and handled? These include such as:
slight variation name/address
married vs maiden name
moved away, moved back
moved locally
name swaps
etc.
How would we compare vote totals for our county reported by the California Secretary of State in certifying the election with vote totals certified in Ventura County by the County ROV?
The ROV Public Information Officer has received the above list twice and indicates she will try to provide answers, some of which are on the ROV website and the California Secretary of State website. I have not researched those sites.
How are the Mail-in ballots generated, produced, and delivered to voters?
I have informally discussed the Postal Service' role in mail-in ballot handling with the area’s postmaster. The ballots/envelopes for this area of California are printed in Seattle WA and placed in a sealed truck, which then drives to the local postal distribution center(s) while being followed by a security car. The seals are broken by a local postal official, and the pallets of votes are checked against the original manifest for accuracy. Ballots are then distributed via routine Postal Service practices, but Federal inspectors come on site at each distribution center for a weekly inspection to assure proper handling, and security, and that there are NO political signs, symbols, endorsements, etc. of any kind on site. All ballot/envelopes are printed with Return to Sender if undeliverable, and those are transferred to the ROV unopened where they are processed as noted above.
CONCLUSION:
WHILE OUR PERSONAL MONITORING OF THE VOTING CENTERS, THE DROP BOXES, AND THE ROV VOTING CENTER REMAINS CRUCIAL TO ENSURE ELECTION INTEGRITY, THE CRITICAL LONG-TERM ISSUE REMAINS THE TIMELY ACCURACY OF THE VOTING ROLLS, AND ASSURANCE THAT BALLOTS ARE ONLY MADE FOR PROPERLY REGISTERED VOTERS WHO ARE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES. THE CALIFORNIA SECRETARY OF STATE AND LOCAL OFFICIALS DEPEND ON THE VOTER'S HONOR FOR THE LATTER