EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Feel like you’ve been hearing way too much about voting recently?
Well, don’t worry — it’s almost over. If you’ve got the message but are still curious about a few factoids, then I’ve put it into a song ("I'm Just a Vote") that might help you out.
But if you’re feeling the need to hear more without the jingle, allow me to unburden you.
Five Things to Know:
- How about all that stress about official drop boxes? There really is one main place to look out for: The Secretary Of State’s website is packed full of wisdom, especially regarding early voting and ballot drop-off.
- Most of us have sent in our votes via the handy mail-in option, which is actually hugely safe against fraud. Your vote heads to a processing station where the barcode is scanned.
- Cameras take photos of your signature and, in a jiffy, match it up with your file on the register. If you didn’t register then you won’t be voting, I’m sorry to say.
- Your ballot is then slipped out of its envelope and, at this point, becomes a ballot paper that can no longer be traced to you — because no one ever knows how you voted once the ballots are out of the envelope. This protects everyone’s right to vote privately.
- Then, because you envelope has been scanned and checked against the register to confirm it’s from you, the computing system then knows that you've voted, so you can’t vote again and again in the election — and neither can anyone else, which is why fraud is so low on mail-in voting.
All of this is done on a computing system that is air-gapped, meaning the computers aren’t attached to the internet and are thus protected from hackers.
So there you have it — hopefully a few helpful facts and information to make you feel a little more secure and relaxed about our upcoming election.