SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Once your vote is cast at a drop box the Registrar’s Office makes sure your ballot is counted and secured.
Hang Nguyen, Assistant Registrar of Voters in Sacramento County, says that as soon as ballots are counted, they’re organized and kept in a gated area with restricted access.
“California does have very strict requirements around ballots and voting ballots. So, they’re under lock and key, they’re under camera,” Nguyen said.
Once votes are tabulated and locked away, Nguyen says ballots are kept under surveillance for 22 months in case there’s a recall or audit into election results.
“It’s a very tedious process, but it’s an extra layer of security for us,” Nguyen added.
Each day, the Registrar’s transportation team picks up ballots from drop boxes and brings them to their office to be checked for proper signatures before being processed and counted.
Nguyen says if any ballots are damaged before they make it to the Registrar’s office, the voter will be contacted.
Recently, a ballot drop box was set on fire in Baldwin Park. So far, L.A. police have recovered more than 200 damaged ballots from the blaze.
Nguyen says if the damaged ballots are legible they can still be counted.
“We would duplicate the voters' intended marks over to a clean ballot in order to be sent through the ballot tabulator,” Nguyen explained.
But if the ballots are unidentifiable, the Registrar’s office will contact the voter and work with them to make sure the person’s vote is counted.
“We also hope that voters, when they’re dropping off their ballots, they’re keeping eyes out for the locations and if they do hear that something like this happens, they contact us,” Nguyen said.
The L.A. County Board of Supervisors and Registrar both reiterated that they’re committed to a fair democratic election process and will investigate the fire thoroughly.
The California Secretary of State’s office is also working with Los Angeles County to assist in any way possible.
The L.A. County Registrar’s office is encouraging voters to verify that their ballot was received if they dropped it off at the Baldwin Park library drop box.
If received, Nguyen says voters can expect their ballots to be counted and then safely stored away.