San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
POLL WATCHERS CAN OBSERVE, TAKE NOTES, NOT ALLOWED TO INTERFERE
Watching, yes. Interfering, no. President Donald Trump’s repeated calls to his supporters to monitor election polling places for fraud have raised questions about what is allowed, and what isn’t, as San Diego County residents begin casting their ballots for the Nov. 3 election.
Observers, as they are known in California, have long been part of elections here. Usually they are campaign insiders or politicalparty volunteers, and they rarely draw public attention as they quietly watch what goes on in polling places or at the Registrar of Voters Office, where ballots are processed and tabulated.
This year, Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of pervasive fraud have cast poll-watching in a
more ominous light. That’s raising concerns among voting-rights advocates and others that his supporters might try to intimidate voters and interfere with ballots as part of a broader effort to delegitimize any outcome unfavorable to Trump.
His son, Donald Jr., asked people in a Sept. 21 video posted on Twitter to join the “Army for Trump,” volunteers he said are needed to fight Democrats who are “laying the groundwork to steal this election.” The Trump campaign has said it hopes to recruit 50,000 poll watchers nationwide.
On Sept. 29, during the presidential debate with Joe Biden, Trump echoed the call, urging his supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully.” He tweeted a link for volunteer sign-ups the next day.
A coalition of 11 Democratic governors, including California’s Gavin Newsom, responded Sept. 30 with a joint statement criticizing what they said were threats to the democratic process.
“There is absolutely no excuse for promoting the intimidation or harassment of voters,” it said. “These are all blatant attempts to deny our constituents the right to have their voices heard, as guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, and to know the will of the people will be carried out.”
Trump has been especially critical of mail voting, expanded in response to the coronavirus pandemic, even though there is no evidence to support his claim that the balloting is ripe for “massive fraud and abuse.” One recent analysis found 143 criminal convictions over the past 20 years, during which some 250 million mail ballots were cast nationwide — a fraud rate of 0.00006 percent.
Michael Vu, San Diego County’s registrar of voters, said his office comes across a few cases of apparent fraud in every election and refers them to law enforcement for possible prosecution. “But the notion that there is widespread, systemic fraud — there just isn’t any evidence of that, in San Diego or anywhere in the nation,” he said.
There haven’t been significant problems here over the years with election observers, either, he said. But Vu acknowledged that “there is a certain tone out there” in the political climate that could lead to confrontations.
“In the past, everyone’s been cooperative, and that’s my expectation this time, too,” Vu said. “There are procedures in place, and anyone coming to observe the election should know what their rights are, and what the boundaries are.
“Interfering or intimidating is against the law, and we won’t tolerate it.”
What’s allowed
Rules for observers in California vary by county, but in general they are designed to allow any member of the public to watch the election process, from the opening and closing of polling places to the counting of ballots.
Observers can ask questions of poll workers who aren’t busy assisting voters, but they can’t talk to voters or challenge them about their eligibility.
They can inspect the publicly posted roster of voters, to see who has voted and who hasn’t, but they can’t sit at the workers’ tables, touch voting materials, or go into booths where ballots are being cast.
They can take notes, but they can’t photograph or videotape the inside of a polling place while it’s open and voters are present.
They cannot “electioneer” — do anything that favors a particular candidate or proposition — within 100 feet of a polling place.
Vu said poll workers usually set up a designated place for observers to watch. This election, because of COVID-19 safety requirements, workers may have to limit how many observers can be inside a location at one time, he said.
So what does all that mean for this election, when every registered voter in California is receiving a mail ballot?
In theory, all voters would mark their ballots at home, put them in the provided postage-paid return envelopes, and drop them in the mail early so they are postmarked on or before Election Day (late ballots don’t get counted). There would be no voting at polling places for observers to watch.
But that’s not how it’s unfolding. The claims about fraud, coupled with recent concerns about the financially-strapped U.S. Postal Service’s ability to handle the pandemic caused increase in mail ballots, have left many people considering other options. In San Diego County, there are 126 ballot dropoff locations that opened Oct. 6 at libraries, recreation centers and other facilities. Staffed by election workers, they will be in use through Election Day. (Hours of operation vary; check the registrar’s website, sdvote.com, for details.)
In some states, Republicans are training volunteers to watch and videotape the activity at drop boxes, according to a recent Reuters report. They tried unsuccessfully in one Pennsylvania county to have a sheriff ’s deputy assigned to each box to check the IDS of people depositing ballots.
Last week, a Uniontribune reporter drove to a half-dozen drop-off sites in San Diego and saw no sign of observers.
There’s not much for them to watch. Each mail ballot has to be in the return envelope that came with it. (The envelope has a bar code unique to each voter, one of the system’s safeguards against fraud and double-voting). At the drop-off sites, a worker makes sure the envelope is sealed, signed and dated, and then it gets put in a locked box.
Ballots aren’t processed until they are taken to the registrar’s office in Kearny Mesa. Processing includes signature verification of the return envelope to confirm the ballot was cast by the person it was sent to. Only then is the envelope opened and the ballot removed for counting.
Mail ballots started coming in from voters to the registrar’s office last week, and election workers were expected to begin verifying signatures on Friday. That process, too, is open for observers to witness, subject to rules preventing interference and protecting the privacy of voters.
Officials said anyone interested in observing should contact the registrar’s office at (858) 5655800.
In-person voting
Even though every registered voter is receiving a mail ballot this election, people who prefer to do it the traditional way — in a polling place, standing in the semi-privacy of a threesided cardboard booth — can still do so.
In-person voting began Monday at the registrar’s office and will continue there on weekdays through Oct. 30.
Beginning on Oct. 31, the registrar’s office and 235 other polling places throughout the county will open for four straight days of in-person voting, culminating on Nov. 3, Election Day. That’s fewer than the 1,500 precincts open for the March primary — another nod to the coronavirus.
Vu said voters who need to vote in person should check their election materials or the registrar’s website to find the right polling place. He encouraged people to vote early to avoid crowds on Election Day. Face masks and social distancing will be required.
Based on voter surveys and the large advantage Democrats have in voter registrations, Biden is expected to win easily in California, which may affect the interest Trump supporters here have in heeding his call to poll-watch.
But the president’s campaign, in one of its “Election Day Team” recruiting videos, says its goal is “to cover every polling place in the country with people like you.”
And this is also the first presidential election in almost 40 years where the Republican National Committee has been allowed to organize poll-watching without approval from a federal court. The committee was under a 1982 consent decree after it sent armed “ballot security” teams to Black and Latino neighborhoods in New Jersey, suppressing the vote.
Six years later, a similar incident unfolded in Santa Ana. A Republican assembly member and the county GOP hired uniformed guards to patrol precincts in heavily Latino neighborhoods.
The assemblyman won, but a year later state legislators banned the use of guards at polling places unless they are approved by local election officials.