SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Believe it or not, the countdown is on for the November midterm elections. In 14 days — on Oct. 10 — early voting begins for all counties in California.
Election offices across the state are kicking it into high gear and are inviting and encouraging the public to see it in action.
This comes as the nation prepares to go to the polls again, millions of Americans still believing the baseless claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent. It has been disproven in multiple court rulings.
Voters have a lot of questions and want to feel confident in the electoral process.
“November of 2020 is when we really saw a lot of interest and skepticism in the election process in general, but a lot to do with the results how the results are tabulated – the machines that are used to do the tabulating," said Janna Haynes, a spokesperson for the Sacramento County Election Office.
Haynes says well before the 2020 election, practices have been put in place to test equipment. It’s required by state law.
Sacramento County is starting what is called "logic and accuracy testing" and it will run continuously until completed over the next several days.
Here’s what happens: staff put through every single possible ballot combination through the tabulation machine to ensure the machines are reading them correctly.
“As you can imagine there are thousands of combinations," said Haynes.
The Sacramento County Election Office welcomes you to view this process through an observation window. You just have to call the office.
“Observers I think come in skeptical and leave fully confident in our process because you know, we have it down to a science. We want to be transparent," said Haynes. "We want people’s questions. We want them to see the machines that we are using and the processes we have in place and full confidence in the staff that we have.”
Election officials are also hosting tours on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. They say there has been significant interest.
In addition, the county election’s office sets up a 24/7 live stream as soon as ballots are officially tabulated — an effort to be more transparent.
Plus, while it takes more than 1,000 poll workers to help elections run smoothly and while Sacramento county is in good shape, they are always looking for more election workers.
Anyone can be a neutral election observer throughout the entire election process. There are guidelines though to follow so as to not disrupt the process. Each county runs has different needs — if you’re not in Sacramento county, call your election office for the details.
