Registrar is ready as early voting begins

The 2020 general election will be like no other in modern memory, with the general advice being vote early if you can.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to tear through the country, early voting began Monday morning in Solano County and statewide, with voters who have filled out their ballots already dropping them off at the Registrar of Voters in the County Government Center in Fairfield or in any one of 16 drop-off boxes scattered across the county.

The Registrar, at 675 Texas St., is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for early voting. On the first day, Assistant Registrar of Voters John Gardner said foot traffic by 1 p.m. at his office’s second-floor location was “not a crush but a steady steam — nothing unusual — 20 or 30 people so far.”

During a previous interview,

he essentially, one- residents offering noted stop voter shop the eligible a Registrar registration, full- for to service, county vote, is, replacement information at ballots, the public and counter for first-time voters .

Gardner said his office is fully staffed with full-time and part-time employees who are trained for the expected large wave of voteby-mail ballots, since all California voters received them in the mail this election cycle. In Solano County alone, there are nearly 254,000 registered voters as of Monday (with numbers update weekly).

If choosing to drop off a ballot into a drop box, they can be found online at solanocounty.com, then click on Registrar of Voters. Also, to find a nearby drop box or voting location, visit CAEarlyVoting.sos.ca.gov or go to bit.ly/3cvMKhw.

If voters are concerned about the safety and security of their ballots once dropped off, Gardner assured that the boxes, at 16 locations across the country, are secure and picked up daily by Registrar employees.

Gardner suggested that voters sign up for ballot tracking, at www.california.ballottrax.net or at wheresmyballot. sos.ca.gov for alerts by text, email, or voice on the status of your vote-by-mail ballot.

“This is great — you get an alert when we’ve received your ballot,” he said.

If you have signed up to receive a ballot alert and do not get a notification, contact the Registrar by telephone (707) 784- 6675 or send an email to Elections@solanocounty.com, and Gardner added, “Say, hey, where’s may ballot?”

Additionally, the polling stations on the Nov. 3 Election Day will be at “130 percent of volume” in terms of staffing, with poll workers ranging in age from seniors to “lots of college and high school students helping out,” Gardner said.

If not voting early but in person, the look of the polls

will be geared with the pandemic and voter safety in mind: Besides mask and social- distancing requirements, there will be a greeter, hand sanitizer, and an near prise and sitting electronic the the — behind many ballot entrance. poll clerk roster clear workers No will plastic at sur- be or barriers, have Voter sneeze cubicles said guards Gardner. will but they not will and be disinfected placed 6 feet regularly. apart That particular safety precaution means the processing of voters, long accustomed to few, if any, waits on Election Day, will be at a slower pace, he added. Additionally, poll workers may provide a disposable black marking pen. If you bring your own pen, make sure it has blue or black ink, he noted. When filling out a ballot, make sure you completely fill in the bubble, advised Gard-er

list of polling stations and addresses can be viewed online at bit. ly/3j36ewe.

For those who wish to use the curbside drop- off, that service — primarily City Clerk offices, school districts, Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo, the Masonic Lodge in Vallejo, the Raley’s market in Benicia — begins Oct. 29. For locations and addresses, visit the Registrar’s website or find them at bit. ly/2RX7GEG.

Ballots have been mailed to the county voters and so has the state’s official Voter Information Guide from the Secretary of State’s Office.

Gardner’s office mailed more than 251,000 ballots, and he also anticipates and is preparing for “a very high turnout,” he said.

With roughly four weeks until Election Day, President Trump has recently — and more than once — cast doubt on election security and the validity of mailin ballots, even though he votes by absentee ballot and has for some time. At a recent press conference, before he was diagnosed with COVID-19, he told White House reporters that he would be reelected if all the mail-in ballots were not counted.

But, in a previous interview with The Reporter, Gardner said the 2020 election in Solano County would be secure and accurate as it has been since the Registrar began offering the vote-by-mail option 15 years ago.

If a ballot appears to have an error, then “voters are contacted to try to cure issues with the envelope (signature mismatch, etc.),” he said and added, “Typically, all errors are corrected during the voting period and less than 1 percent (of those identified with an issue) cannot be counted.”

A gain r e fer r i n g to Trump’s recent comments about election security and mail-in ballots, Gardner said the president may have been talking about voting procedures “back East, where there isn’t a lot of vote by mail” as opposed to voting practices in numerous Western states that are accustomed to it.

The vote-by-mail option has been increasingly popular in recent years in Solano County, noted Gardner, citing 75 percent of 2018 ballots were received by mail, with the March 2020 count reaching 80 percent.

“The numbers are going up,” he said. “We’ve been doing this since 2005 and we’ve kind of honed in on doing most of our elections by mail and less by in-person.”

“The elections are no less secure or less valid than they were in the past,” continued Gardner. “This is our normal mode of operations for elections.”

T he Registrar has a “tiered” process to check of the security of vote-bymail ballots, he added. Employees check the envelope, the signature, the eligibility, “and the contents of the envelope — is this the envelope and is this an official ballot that we sent you?” he explained.

“The other part is transparency,” said Gardner. “Our office is open for anyone to observe how we operate.”

Additionally, the Registrar boasts “an audit ability,” he said.