LA County Preps for Election During Pandemic

The Los Angeles County Registrar has a daunting task ahead of the upcoming November election. Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered that all registered Californian voters be sent a vote-by-mail ballot prior to the election due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re not going to let this pandemic stop us,” said California Secretary of State of Alex Padilla at the May 12 meeting of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council. “Our democracy will not be a casualty of this pandemic.”

Padilla said that voters should expect their ballots about a month before the election, around the same time they receive their sample ballots. Once voters are finished filling them out, they can be mailed back with prepaid postage, or place them in special ballot drop boxes.

“It’s great that we’re going for vote-bymail ballots because no one should be put in danger … in order to vote,” said Carrie Scoville, president of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council and the former president of the San Pedro Democratic Club.

Scoville was also elected as delegate to the Los Angeles County Democratic Party Central Committee in November, but she won’t be seated until June.

Californian voters can request a vote-by-mail ballot without having to give a reason, Scoville said. This is an advantage some states do not have. Some states require a doctor to give a reason why the voter cannot make it to the poll. The reason must be medical. It can’t just be that the voter can’t make it out of work on time.

California had a similar rule previously, but it was changed decades ago.

“A vote-by-mail drive has been actively pursued by the Democratic Party for a long time because vote-by-mail voters are more likely to vote,” Scoville said. “It’s a higher turnout than there is for poll voters.”

Because of this, Scoville is looking forward to switching to all vote-by-mail ballots even though she prefers going to the polls.

“I like going to the poll,” Scoville said. “It’s a cultural, family tradition and I like to see that my poll is there and that it’s working.”

In-person voting will still be used in the November election and it will be made as safe and accessible as possible. It is being done mainly for voters who need assistance or who need to register on the day of the election.

“It’s still to be determined how many

locations, how many days, but there will be in-person voting opportunities on and before election day,” Padilla said.

He also encouraged voting early, whether it is by mail or at the polls. This will reduce the size of the lines on election day, making it safer for both voters and poll workers.

There are several benefits to vote-by-mail ballots as opposed to poll voting, including not having to worry about whether your name will be on the list at the polling place.

“It’s also done in the privacy of their home,” Scoville said. “They can talk about it with their family; they can do it at their leisure; they don’t have to do it only on a certain date or a certain hour.”

Even in the previous election, about 64 percent of voters in Los Angeles County received a vote-by-mail ballot, Padilla said.

“We’re in the transition already to this new method of voting,” Padilla said.

In other counties in California, voters automatically received vote-by-mail ballots a month before the last election, he said.

In order to verify the ballots, the registrar’s office will compare the voter’s signature on the outside of the envelope to the voter’s most recent signature on his or her voter registration form.

The process is proven to be secure, Padilla said. There are other ways to verify the ballots as well. For example, if a voter sends in a vote-bymail ballot, but also votes at the polls, only the first ballot that is received will be counted.

A few years ago, vote-by-mail ballots had to be in possession of election officials by 8 p.m. on election night. While he was in the California

Senate, Padilla voted for a measure that made ballots postmarked on or before election day eligible to be counted if they arrived within three days after the election.

If the voter does not sign the ballot, it won’t be counted, but the registrar will send him or her a postcard saying that the voter has three days to sign it, Scoville said.

“Signatures change a lot over time, so it can be hard to tell, particularly with seniors,” Scoville said. “Their signatures change substantially, you know, as they age.”

Scoville is part of the Long Beach Gray Panthers, which encourages seniors to re-register so that their signatures on file will be up to date with the signatures on their ballots.

Donald Trump has been very critical of mailin voting, but Padilla said that his accusations were offensive and outright lies.

“Trump himself is a vote-by-mail voter,” Padilla said. “It’s pretty hypocritical that he’ll attack vote-by-mail, threaten to not fund the postal service, yet he himself is benefitting from vote-by-mail as a Florida voter.”

Padilla asked that all registered voters check that their registration information is correct at https://voterstatus.sos.ca.gov/. At this website, vote-by-mail voters can also see if their ballots were received and if they were counted, as well as a reason for why their ballots were not counted.

“That transparency is good, both for public confidence and underlying integrity of the election,” Padilla said.

While vote-by-mail ballots are the most practical solution for the November election, Scoville believes that switching to online voting is possible eventually. However, access to wi-fi and devices such as phones and laptops would need to be universal.

Such a system is used in Estonia, a small European country with a population of 1.33 million. About 44% of votes cast in the country’s 2019 elections were submitted online.

“They use online voting,” Scoville said, “And guess what? They’re right next to Russia and they don’t care. They use online voting and it works for them just fine.”

Estonian citizens can use ID cards or mobile

ID to vote from anywhere in the world, the Estonian government’s website said. The voter’s identity is removed before counting to preserve the voter’s anonymity. The polls are open for seven days and voters can even change their votes up until the last day.

Scoville believes that such a system could work for the United States, but it would need to be government-run.

“It needs to be really run by the government and not farmed out,” Scoville said. “That’s where you have the problem.”