Riverside County Final Election Administration Plan and You.

Get in here, we're doing election information!

The hook: Have your voice heard!

Have you ever had strong opinions on policy only to learn from news reports that there had been a public hearing weeks ago? Even worse, most of the opinions were ill-informed or just didn’t hit the mark?

Do you hold those opinions in regard to our elections? Well then, I have good news for you! You have one week to formulate those strongly held opinions and submit, or speak, them at a public hearing being held by the Riverside County Registrar of Voters.

Would it help if I told you the powers that be [they] are under the impression that you, dear voter, WANT more voting machines, early voting, voting by mail, and voting by internet?

Riled up a bit yet? Just a little? Good, please stay with me.

The Hearing.

The Plan.

The hearing is on the Final Election Administration Plan (EAP), referred to in the notice as “supplemental” but when the links supplied by the Riverside County Registrar of Voters (ROV) are followed, you are taken to the same document (linked above). The pdf is 71 pages, so to avoid nodding off just the highlights.

The executive summary, by Rebecca Spencer (RoV), states the county is “switching to the Voter’s Choice Act, or VCA, to serve its diverse and growing populace.” And that the RoV has been “encouraged” by the “pandemic” of the last two years to “go from meticulously studying the merits of potential change to making it happen in a short amount of time.” That change is the transition to the vote center model.

Spencer is under the impression that voters just love the changes to our election laws the last couple of years, including machines and vote by mail, when she said, “And if the feedback we’ve heard from voters is any indication, there’s no going back.”

The EAP “provides the foundation and guiding outline for the future of voting and elections in Riverside County,” and “means that all registered voters will continue to receive a vote-by-mail ballot… approximately 145 vote centers and 87 ballot drop off boxes are expected based on current voter counts and California Election Code requirements.”

87 drop off boxes! If you have not viewed 2000 mules yet, I strongly suggest that you do so soon.

Riverside County RoV prints and mails 1.3 million ballots!

Seeing as we are in the days that your mailbox can be raided daily and the postal service just doesn’t have time to deal with it. They can’t even do anything about their workers being the victims of armed robbery. True story from Moreno Valley. So I ask, what could go wrong?

This tidbit might be interesting, if not useful to some:

“The Registrar of Voters operates its own high-speed mail sorting equipment that is used to process return ballots. The equipment takes digital images of every single returned envelope and tracks that it has been returned. The images are used by staff members to compare the signature taken from the VBM envelopes to that of the voter registration on file to determine that the correct voter has returned his or her ballot.”

The county has “10 high-speed ballot tabulators that can simultaneously scan ballot cards,” and includes “eight dedicated adjudication stations.”

What are adjudication stations? Great question, I’m so glad you asked!

Adjudication stations are used by “staff to determine the voter’s intent on any items the tabulator cannot read.” Take that statement to heart, it may deserve some scrutiny, or at least some clarifying questions. Who exactly decides what you, dear voter, intended? And, what is the threshold?

There is a mandated formula to follow for voting centers and drop boxes. Let’s just take a look at the boxes since they are of more concern.

The VCA requires “one ballot drop box location for every 15,000 registered voters,” and there were approximately 87 boxes for the June primaries. The plan provides the formula and drop box selection process, including a map of potential locations. It would behoove us all to get the final locations before early voting kicks off in November, they may need eyes on.

Also concerning is that voters can request RAVBM, or internet voting, basically. You can read more in the plan as well as in this article from last year. Danger Will Robinson!

Your turn voting machine concern-peeps!

Every center will “exclusively feature at least 10 accessible ballotmarking devices and will be flexible enough to expand that number. Voters will be able to mark their ballot using the touch screen display, the device’s Audio Tactile Interface or their own assistive technology.”

The RoV will have laptops at each center that has a direct connection to the county voters database.

Sacrier: “The Registrar of Voters entered into a contract with Dominion Voting as a voting system solution for its ballot-marking and tabulation equipment. The Registrar of Voters utilizes their Democracy Suite voting equipment. Each Vote Center features 10 of their ballot-marking devices, which is used exclusively for all voters.”

See the RAVBM article for more info on Dominion, if you need it… you are all such smarty-pants!

For ballots on demand the RoV will utilize “Accessible Voting Units, or AVUs. The vast majority of voters prefer using this ballotmarking device, though a small number of voters still insisted on wanting a “paper ballot.””

There is also “new Precinct Scanner machines at each Vote Center which records all votes cast on each ballot as they are deposited into the ballot box by the voter.” Hmmmm.

And to close out, put some eyes on the testing of election equipment. The plan mentions test for the June primary, but also states that public testing will take place about three weeks before election day.

“ In accordance with state law, testing will be conducted to ensure that each piece of equipment is programmed accurately and captures the correct voter selections and tabulates them correctly. This testing of machine logic and accuracy is conducted on all ballot tabulators at the Registrar of Voters office used for counting ballots and all precinct scanners, ballot printers and ballot-marking devices sent out for use at Vote Centers. This testing process is open to the public. A public demonstration showing that the equipment has been properly tested for service will be conducted approximately three weeks before Election Day.”

I encourage all to read the entire plan and let the RoV know in the next week just what you think of California’s (Newsom’s) election system!