County's Elections Office working nonstop to verify election results

For many residents, the Nov. 8 General Election is over. They're now looking at holiday plans or possible vacation brochures instead of reading candidate bios and statements. A handful of candidates in tight local races and residents who follow local politics weekly, however, are waiting for about 30 permanent and temporary Placer County Elections Office staff working nonstop since Nov. 8 to announce official race results. The newspaper had several callers Nov. 9 and Nov. 10, some irate, saying we were amiss for not listing the winners of the Nov. 8 General Election's races. Some callers told us that we were not doing our job because all the ballots were counted and winners were listed on the Elections Office website at 1:17 a.m. Nov. 9. But, as we told the callers last week, the unofficial results Nov. 9 only listed the ballots cast at the county's 164 polling booths. Up to as many as two-thirds more ballots not yet counted could easily change race results. Votes not yet processed last week included vote by mail ballots, vote by mail ballots dropped off at the polls and ballots dropped off at other counties' polling places and official drop boxes. As we reported last week, official results of local races will likely not be known until near or at the end of the canvass period, according to the county Elections Office. Case in point, the initial votes released Nov. 9 said that Rocklin City Council candidate Matthew Oliver had 51.14 percentage of votes or 4,616 votes and candidate David Bass had 48.78 percentage of votes or 4,403 votes. Fast-forward to the Unofficial Results - Report 5 released Nov. 11. Matthew Oliver's percentage of votes decreased to 50.19 or 5,305 votes and David Bass' percentage of votes increased to 49.74 percentage of votes or 5,257 votes. While Oliver was still ahead by 48 votes on Nov. 11, there were still possibly thousands of outstanding ballots that could change the outcome. The unofficial results released on Nov. 15 (Tuesday) showed Bass was only behind by 40 votes. Another example of a race that couldn't yet be called last week was the Placer County Supervisor race with Shanti Landon and Scott Alvord. The Nov. 9 first unofficial results had Landon at 55.03 percentage of votes or 7,909 votes and Alvord at 44.89 percentage of votes or 6,451 votes. But the Unofficial Results -Report 5 on Nov. 11 had Landon at 54.31 percentage of votes or 8,755 votes and Alvord at 45.62 percentage of votes or 7,353 votes. While Landon was still significantly ahead, Alvord gained .73 percentage point within a few days and it was possible for him to gain more votes. California election law gives counties 30 days to verify every vote cast before the Elections Office releases official results. The Placer County Elections Office expects to count 110,000 to 120,000 more ballots, or somewhere between 175,000 to 185,000 total ballots (including what has already been counted), said County Clerk/Recorder/Registrar of Voters Ryan Ronco. Election results are updated Tuesdays and Fridays. Ensuring every vote cast by residents is legitimate before the official results are released is a painstaking process that the Elections Office does extremely well. There are many steps that must be followed. It includes comparing the signature on the outside of each vote by mail ballot envelope to the signature that the voter provided on their voter registration card. It also includes making sure that conditional voter registration and provisional ballots are eligible to be counted and that the voter is legitimate, registered nowhere else in California and has not already voted. The Elections Office has to check that no one in the polling places stuffed the ballot boxes with extra votes. Verifying the ballots also includes making sure the voting machines programmed and deployed to each precinct counted the ballots accurately by auditing the machines and verifying counts with a hand count of a random percentage of precincts. The Placer County Elections Office invites the public to watch the process. "We invite anyone with questions, concerns or just interest in seeing the controls we have in place to ensure an accurate count to come by and visit our office at 2956 Richardson Drive in Auburn during our posted office hours (we usually work from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. during the week and are often here on the weekends)," Ronco said. "We will post our hours on our website at www.placercountyelections.gov. We will take them on a tour and they can stay as long as they want. Over the years, we've had everyone from candidates to political parties to Election Integrity Project, CA come and they are all satisfied with our security and procedures." If anyone is impatient with the races not being officially called last week or this week, consider all that the Elections Office has to do to make sure that every ballot is authentic. The Elections Office staff are just doing their jobs. Races won't be called until it's 100-percent sure. And we should be thankful for that.