SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The 2024 general election is Nov. 5 and Californians will influence the results of not just the presidential race, but also the U.S. Senate down to local candidates. California voters will also get a chance to vote on 10 statewide propositions that would enact new laws.
It's a lot to vote on and ABC10 wants to make sure you have all the information you need to vote! It's why our team of journalists is working hard to make sure we answer election-related questions coming our way.
This is part of ABC10's voter engagement project we launched in August to meet people face-to-face, distribute our own nonpartisan information and resources like our comprehensive voter guide, and collect election-related questions. We'll continue to be at more places until November, focusing on reaching areas with low voter turnout and neighborhoods with large communities of color. All the information we collect will help shape our election coverage leading to Election Day.
This page will continue to be updated as we receive more questions from our community events and readers who fill out our online survey. Want to ask us something? Let us know at the form at the bottom of this article and remember to check back to see if your question was answered!
Q: "How can I protect my ballot from being stolen?" (Anonymous from Natomas)
A: Stealing ballots isn't a common occurrence. If you're the thief, you'd have to hit a lot of mailboxes to influence an election and each one you hit is a federal crime. Regardless, if you're concerned about the security of your mailbox, you can click HERE to sign up for text and email alerts to let you know when the county mails your ballot to you and when it's accepted after you send it back to be counted. This way, you'll have an idea when to expect your ballot in the mail. If something happens to your mailbox, you'll also be able to see whether you should have gotten your ballot in the mail by now or not.
Q: "I am a registered Independent. Will there be coverage related to other candidates that don't have the funding the major parties have?"(Will S. from South Sacramento)
A: In California, this question really only applies to the Presidential race. For all the other races, only the top two vote-getters appear on the November ballot. With only a handful of exceptions, almost all the candidates for Congress and the state legislature are Democrats or Republicans. The race for President is different because it involves party nominations. We have six names on the ballot:
- Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democrats
- Former President Donald Trump for the Republicans
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who dropped out and endorsed Trump
- Jill Stein, a repeat candidates for the Green Party
- Chase Oliver for the Libertarian Party
- Claudia de la Cruz for the Peace and Freedom Party
All of them have candidate statements you can read online. Minor party candidates often get no support in the polls. If they do, it's usually 1-2%. Traditionally, third-party candidates don't get invited to the debates unless they have 15% in the polls.
It's our job to cover the politics we actually have because that's what decides who'll run the government. If a third party starts winning big races, they'll start earning more news coverage. We're always watching for that!
Q: "Just who actually does the counting?" (James B.)
A: Machines do the heavy counting work. It all happens in a secure room not connected to the Internet. In the counting room, there's no way to tell who the ballots belong to. Your name and signature go on the envelope, which gets checked before the ballot ever gets to the counting room. The ballots work by bubbling in your votes, just like the Scantron tests we all loved in school!
If the machine finds any kind of irregularity, whether you skipped voting on some races, erased a bubble and filled in another, or drew a checkmark instead of filling in the bubble, humans get involved. A pair of election judges, or trained county election workers, will look together at the issue flagged by the scanning machine. The two judges can't belong to the same political party, so it's always either one Democrat and one Republican or one independent voter and one Republican or Democrat. They'll follow the law to determine what the voter intended, mark a new ballot with that vote and send it to the scanning machine. The scanner loads all the votes into the counting computer and results sit in the computer memory as raw data until the last polls close on election night. Only then does the election office tell the computer to add up all the results.
Polls close at 8 p.m. on election night and usually we start getting results 15-30 minutes later!
Q: "Who funds the campaigns for ballot propositions?"(Ariel from South Natomas)
A: The California Fair Political Practices Commission maintains a website listing the top 10 contributors for and against all of the propositions. Click HERE to access it. Some of these propositions have backers paying millions and millions of dollars on big ad campaigns. If you see the ads, you can also look at the fine print because the ads are required to list their major funders under California law.
Want answers to other frequently asked questions? Check out our ABC10 voter guide, designed to make information from the official voter guide easier to understand.
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