Federal officials to monitor vote in San Mateo County

San Mateo County, which recently implemented a new voting system, will be one of 35 counties across the country that will be monitored on Election Day by federal elections officials.

The extra scrutiny by the U.S. Justice Department in 19 states is routine — and down significantly since the 2016 presidential election when 67 counties were monitored in 28 states. In a news release Monday, the department said the monitoring is intended to ensure voting rights are protected.

“This year we are using every lawful tool that we have, both civil and criminal, to protect the rights of millions of Americans to cast their vote unimpeded at one of more than 170,000 precincts across America,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a news release Monday.

The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department has regularly monitored elections across the country since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

President Trump, who initiated a short-lived Voter Fraud Commission after taking office, had a different message on Monday:

“Law Enforcement has been strongly notified to watch closely for any ILLEGAL VOTING which may take place in Tuesday’s Election (or Early Voting). Anyone caught will be subject to the Maximum Criminal Penalties allowed by law. Thank you.”

San Mateo County is not a battleground for any congressional seat and — like most of America — has no history of voter fraud.

In fact, when federal officials arrived in San Mateo County over the past few days and met with elections officials, the subject of voting fraud “did not even come up,” said Jim Irizarry, the county’s assistant chief elections officer. “They focused primarily on the language materials that are provided” to make sure all the elections information is in English, Spanish and Chinese.

Irizarry speculated that his county was chosen to be audited by the Justice Department because it is one of five counties in California conducting elections under the 2017 Voter’s Choice Act, a system that required ballots to be mailed to all registered voters and encourages them to mail them back or drop them off at “voting centers.”

The county used to open 205 polling places on Election Day, but now has 39 voting centers on Tuesday. A smaller number of voting centers have been opened for several weeks to give voters a place to register, vote by machine or paper ballot or drop off their ballots early.

In 2015, San Mateo was the first county to conduct a countywide “All Mailed” ballot election, which became the prototype for the Voter’s Choice Act. Sacramento, Madera, Napa and Nevada counties are the only other counties that have implemented this system so far.

Because the voting centers are already open in San Mateo County, the federal monitors already assessed several, including one in Daly City, Irizarry said.

“It’s gone relatively well,” he said. “It’s pretty hard to point out something that is going so well in San Mateo County.”

The plain-clothed federal analysts look like most other election observers, including citizens groups, Irizarry said. “We welcome that type of discussion and viewing.”

The new system has been a boon to early voting, he said. In a county with 503,000 eligible voters, more than 400,000 are registered, including about 15,000 more than in recent elections. As of Monday, 120,000 early voting ballots had been delivered to “election central,” he said. In 2014, before the new model was pioneered, only 82,600 had been cast in early voting.

The primary goal of this new election model is to “expand accessibility and voting opportunities for all voters, particularly those with disabilities, visual impairments and language minorities,” according to the county website. The visually impaired have access to computer ballots using “screen readable technology” that the voters can listen to.

Sacramento County, which is also using the new “All-Mailed” model, is the only other California county that will receive the extra scrutiny from the federal government on Tuesday. Others states that will be federally monitored include Florida, Nevada, Texas, South Dakota and Arizona.