MENDOCINO COUNTY PROCESSING BALLOTS AT RECORD PACE
UKIAH » More than two weeks after most voters in Mendocino County received their ballots in the mail, the county Elections Office has already received 8,000 of them, a number more than 10 times higher than in past years, said county election officials.
“Normally at this point, we would have received about 700,”
said Katrina Bartolomie, Assessor- County Clerk-Recorder, explaining that by Friday, Oct. 16 she had picked up nearly that amount (640 ballots) from Fort Bragg alone on Tuesdaymorning. Then on the following Thursday, another 683 were picked up from the box in Fort Bragg.
“Fort Bragg and Ukiah are definitely where we are getting most of our ballots delivered,” Bartolomie said, adding that elections
staff are emptying the ballot drop box in front of the county administration building in Ukiah “first thing at 8 a.m. every morning, then we check it every two hours, then we make sure it is empty at 5 p.m.”
Since some residents “really still want to hand their ballot to a person,” Bartolomie said people can call her office at (707) 234- 6819 and request that a staff member meet them at the door to
the county building, or meet them at the “wedding window” where marriages are now being performed to hand over their ballot.
Ballots were mailed on Oct. 5, and she said while some residents received them on Friday, Oct. 9, most people began seeing themin their mail boxes on Saturday, Oct. 10. As the ballots come into her office, she said her staff is scanning them, opening them,
verifying signatures and began counting them Monday. Oct. 18.
“We can count them now, we’re just trying to keep up with the processing at this point,” she said, adding that the ballots can be run through the counting machines now, but “we just can’t upload any of the numbers until Election Day.”
As for tracking your own ballot, Bartolomie said that the state’s “Where’s My Ballot?” tracking service does notwork inall areas of Mendocino County, including Talmage and many coastal towns such as Albion, Point Arena and Manchester. She urged local voters to use a Mendocino County-specific link instead: https://www. mendocinocounty.org/government/assessor- countyclerk- recorder- elections/ elections/vote-by-mail-absentee-status
When asked how the ballots were being processed at city drop boxes such as the ones in Fort Bragg and Willits, Bartolomie said “they are following the same protocols that we have, in which two people handle the ballots, logging when they were received and putting them in a secure box” for elections staff to retrieve.
Describing this fall’s election as “an election like no other,” Bartolomie said she also wanted to remind people who still want to go to the polls and vote in person on Nov. 3 that “if they do not bring in their mailin ballot to surrender, they will need to vote provisionally, which many people won’t like.”
If you are not already registered to vote, call 707-2346819 for a Voter Registration card or go to: https:// register to vote. ca. gov/ to register to vote online.