By M E Gladis

On Friday of the week after election night an interim report was made of about 10,000 VBM scanned ballots. Let me inform you that one or two pairs of processors set up in the scan area at tables for duplication of the ballots that cause certain trouble for the scanners. The scanned ballots go vertically into clear plastic bags with labels of batch and initialing by two staff, usually a scanner and a support staff.

Then there are voters who mark two spots on a one choice office, over voting. That results in no vote because no one in the office can say what the voters true intention was on that office. There are undervotes when two or more choices are available for the office and only one vote is marked. That vote is qualified and counted. There are stray marks that interrupt the scanning process. All these issues must all be reconciled.

Next there is the Write-in. News to me: a valid write-in candidate must register with the Secretary of State (SOS) office and list the name(s) by which the candidate is known. In order to write in a candidate a voter must fill in the write- in box and clearly enter the validated candidate’s name. No random non- registered name is counted.

By M E Gladis

Well, first let’s congratulate the Yolo County Election staff! Yolo County was the first of 58 counties to certify the voting outcome. That distinction is due to the office staff and recurring temporary election staff being experienced, professional, and dedicated to counting every vote. These busy staff also courteously greeted and answered numerous questions from the public observers.

In my daily attendance as an observer, including the Tuesday of the week before election when the testing of the scanners was performed I learned why it takes so long to count the vote. I was there on election night to observe the dock where incoming poll materials were delivered. The dock staff stayed until 3:00 a.m. Supervisors stayed later, and all back to work by 8:00 a.m. They intentionally wait another day to process anything that requires astute attention. Staff save and label all items from the Jun 5th election; every ballot, tally sheet, every envelope, every ballot is labeled and saved for 22 months. Also each and every item received by mail or delivery service in the election department is recorded in a log by a front office staff. So the number of Vote By Mail (VBM) ballots that arrive by postal delivery are recorded each day.

Election night after staff processed the poll ballots to inspect the barcodes, the IT staff scanned the poll ballots along with the white VBM envelopes that were received by the election department enough ahead of election night that staff could process and have those VBM ballots ready for scanning, waiting in clear plastic see-through bags with their designation on a large sticker. The few ballots the scanners rejected election night were placed in a tray labeled for later duplication.