“The Canvass is the least understood, most important part of the elections process,” Slocum, our Chief Elections Officer, is apt to declare.

• There are many parts to the Canvass, but here’s the breakdown as described by the California Association of Clerks and Elected Officials:
• Inspection of all of the election materials and supplies returned by the Precinct Board.
• Reconciliation of the number of signatures on the Combined Roster-Index with the number of ballots recorded on the Precinct Ballot Statement.
• Processing the official polling place Combined Roster-Index, which includes accounting for all voters who signed the Combined Roster-Index on Election Day.
• Update voter history from the Combined Roster-Index.
• Reconciliation of the number of ballots counted, spoiled, surrendered, or invalidated to to “identifying marks”
• Processing and tallying of any valid Vote by Mail and Provisional Ballots not included in the Semifinal Official Vote Results
• Counting any valid Write-In votes
• Reconciling damaged ballots
• Conducting the 1% Manual Tally of the Votes
• Reporting final results to the Governing Board
• Transmitting certified results to the Secretary of State

“Performing the canvass is the way that elections offices can be certain that all the vote counting systems are accurate and, ultimately, that the votes are accurate,” said Elections Manager David Tom.

We’ll be breaking down the different parts of the Canvass as we begin each process over the course of the next 28 days.  In the meantime, check out our earlier post for a detailed overview of the Canvass by clicking here!

We won’t turn any voter away (during polling place hours). But if we don’t find you on the Roster, you’ll be given a provisional ballot.

What does this mean? How is it any different from a regular ballot? The answer — the ballot isn’t different. It’s just processed differently.

Here’s a few of the many different scenarios that would result in a provisional ballot:

1. The voter’s name doesn’t show up on the Combined Roster-Index.
2. The voter is a Vote by Mail voter that wants to vote at the polls, but doesn’t have a Vote by Mail ballot to surrender.
3. The address printed on the roster does not match the voter’s current address.

If you vote on a provisional ballot, we’ll ask you to seal it in a green-bordered envelope that looks like this:

After this step, most voters ask us, “how do I know if my vote was counted?”

In the 28 days following the election, the Elections Office will review and determine the eligibility of each provisional voter’s ballot.  If you are eligible to vote in this election, your ballot will be counted and added to the final vote tally.

If you vote provisionally today, you can call 866-830-VOTE (8683) beginning December 2.  If it’s not counted, you are entitled to know why it did not count.

And, by the way, if you’re just looking for results from today’s election, visit http://www.shapethefuture.org/elections/results/november2008 beginning 8:05 p.m. and stay tuned to Channel 26!

First Time Voters

If this is going to be your first time voting, and you’re planning to vote at the polls, keep in mind that you may have to show some I.D.California Elections Code requires identification to be shown at the polls if it was not verified when you registered to vote.

Don’t be caught off guard. Have your identification ready just in case. There are 30 forms of acceptable identification – from a driver’s license to a utility bill. Check out http://www.shapethefuture.org/voters/first-time.asp for more info.

Provisional Voting

Provisional voting occurs when a voter does not appear on a precinct’s roster.  This can occur for a number of reasons.

• The voter’s name is not on the roster at the polling place.
• The voter is a first-time voter and cannot provide the required identification to poll workers.
• The voter is listed on the roster as a Vote by Mail voter, and wants to vote in person instead but does not have an Vote by Mail ballot to surrender. Voters who do bring their Vote by Mail ballots to drop off at the polls are not provisional voters.
• The voter moved and did not re-register at his/her new address.
• The voter wishes to vote on a ballot for a political party with which the voter is not affiliated (not applicable in general elections).

Provisional Ballots are cast on paper ballots — not on the eSlates.  After the voter marks his/her choices on the ballot, the voter will place the voted ballot into a Provisional Ballot Envelope and fill out the information necessary including a signature — similar to the information placed on a Vote by Mail envelope.

The Provisional Ballots will go through the same process as Vote by Mail ballots.  Signatures will be verified to confirm voter eligibility.  Once it is verified, the ballots will be extracted as we explained in our previous post and the ballots will be processed for counting.

Still have questions?  Call (650) 312-5222!

Sorry to report, but Wednesday, the day after Election Day, means that our work has just begun. This election is not over until we say it’s over, days of the calendar notwithstanding.

We’re still counting a lot of remaining ballots. There were Vote by Mail ballots that arrived at the Elections Office on Monday and Tuesday, Vote by Mail ballots that were dropped off at polling places on Election Day, and provisional ballots cast at the polls. Signatures must be checked and provisional ballots carefully reconciled, all of which takes some time.

So that means that we’re still reporting race results. We posted new results on our Web site at 5 p.m. today and will do so again on Friday, the 9th at 5:00 pm and again on Tuesday, the 13th at 5:00 pm.

Some races will be affected by our continuing count. Case in point, San Bruno’s Measure F, which is currently going down by one vote. Yes, one vote. That one vote was counted today – our latest results release around 1 a.m. this morning based on votes counted yesterday showed the measure in a dead tie. Stay tuned to the bitter end; every last vote matters for this one.

As we begin the post-Election Day process, it’s worth noting that voter turnout for this election was unprecedented. And we don’t mean that in a good way. As of now, just 19 percent of the county’s nearly 310,000 registered voters decided to have a say in their local races this year. The number of ballots cast will go up some as we complete our counting, but not by leaps and bounds. The last time we had a Consolidated Municipal, School and Special District Election in Nov. 2003, the turnout was about 24 percent. In 2001, it was 28 percent.

Yeesh. Not a good trend.

On the plus side, however, of the 58,138 ballots counted in this election so far, 60 percent were Vote By Mail. That’s a 10 percent jump over last year’s Gubernatorial General Election, and a 12 percent jump over the Consolidated Special Statewide Election in Nov. 2005. We like Vote By Mail, and are glad to see that so many registered voters think so too.

Race results are not official until they’re certified by our Chief Elections Officer Warren Slocum and the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors. It’ll be a while before you hear the fat lady belting any tunes around here.