Know the Facts About the Upcoming Election
Under the Voters Choice Act every active registered voter in San Diego County will receive a ballot in the mail for all future elections.
Voting by mail is not a new for San Diego County. Prior to the County of San Diego Board of Supervisors’ unanimous decision to transition to the Voter’s Choice Act on October 19, 2021, over 80% of registered voters were signed up to permanently receive their ballot by mail for every election.
Due to the significant number of voters who prefer voting by mail, the Registrar has improved its processes and increased its capacity over the past two decades. The office continues to manage the processing of mail ballots accurately and securely.
The Registrar…
- has a contracted vendor who can handle the large mailing capacity
- has established a strong partnership with local United States Postal Service representatives to ensure timely delivery and return of mail ballots
- has made significant investments to enhance the backend processing of mail ballots, including high-capacity mail sorting machines, digital adjudication, and high-speed scanners
- has added more automated extraction machines
- has expanded the use of the Remote Accessible Vote by Mail System option to all voters
- will start processing mail ballots beginning 29 days before election day
- will accept election day postmarked mail ballots up to 7 days after election day
Safeguards Are in Place for Voting by Mail
Safeguarding the integrity of every election and every validly cast ballot is paramount to the Registrar of Voters’ mission. Much attention has been shined on the security of casting a ballot by mail and the San Diego County Registrar of Voters wants to provide you with all the steps we take to ensure the protection and integrity of every ballot that is cast by mail, including implementing the necessary safeguards, security, chain-of-custody, and quality assurance procedures.
Some of These Safeguards Include:
1. Updating voter registration lists daily, weekly, and monthly to ensure the voter’s correct residence address and mailing address are on file
2. Removing voters from the voter rolls when the Registrar’s office receives:
- Information of those who have passed away from the Bureau of Vital Records/Statistics
- Information from the Superior Court or Federal Court that someone is incarcerated for a felony
- Notification from another election agency that a voter has registered in their county
3. Sending out mailers to determine if a person has moved. Voters will be placed on inactive status when election mail is returned from the United States Postal Service. These voters do not receive a mail ballot unless they interact with the Registrar’s office to confirm their residence status
Learn more about maintenance of voter registration lists.
Signature verification: The principal method used to detect and prevent fraud is the mail ballot envelope itself. Once the mail ballot is received by the Registrar’s office, the signature on the outside of the return ballot envelope is checked against the signature on file in a voter’s registration record.
Mail ballots are tracked: Our election management system tracks mail ballots that are issued to voters. As a result, it has the capability to prevent multiple ballots issued to a voter from being counted. In fact, if we need to send a replacement ballot to a voter, the original one we issued is automatically suspended.
Collaboration with USPS: The Registrar’s office works closely with the United States Postal Service to ensure mail ballots are prioritized in terms of delivery to voters and when returned to our office.
USPS collection boxes and official ballot drop boxes: In addition to the trusted service provided by the United States Postal Service, the Registrar provides official ballot drop box locations across the county.
Electronic Poll Books (ePoll Books): If a voter receives a ballot in the mail but chooses to vote in person at a vote center, an election worker can look up the voter in the ePoll Book to suspend their mail ballot option. After checking in, the voter may then vote in person at the vote center.
If a voter wishes to cast their mail ballot at a vote center, they must check-in at the ePoll Book first.
San Diego County has not experienced systemic or widespread voter fraud, especially concerning voting by mail.
Ways You Can Protect Your Vote
Sign, seal, return your ballot to a trusted source and track your mail ballot. You can track your ballot every step of the way by signing up for “Where’s My Ballot?”.
Learn more about voting in the upcoming election.
Committing voter fraud is a federal crime. Any allegation of voter fraud is referred to the County District Attorney’s Office and the Secretary of State’s Fraud Investigation Unit, which investigates and prosecutes.