SAN DIEGO — Nearly all Californians will receive a ballot by mail during the November election as the pandemic continues to hit the state. Registrars across the state have spent months preparing.
“We've conducted well-run elections in San Diego County, and I see that happening for the November election. Now, having said that, there are a lot of changes there and there's a lot of worries about how the upcoming election is going to be conducted because of those respective changes,” said Registrar Michael Vu.
More than 70% of ballots cast during the March primary were submitted by mail, before the pandemic gripped the nation.
However, the Republican Party of San Diego County warned this week “mail ballot voting is fraught with danger,” echoing concerns the GOP has made at a national level.
“It's not that difficult to forge ballots and we think that nobody would ever do that but the stakes are very high and I think everybody can appreciate that,” said Tony Krvaric, chairman of the local party.
Krvaric laid out several potential scenarios where mail-in voting could be compromised and expressed concern about how frequently the voter registration rolls are reviewed for errors.
“The idea that the voter file has no inaccuracy -- we come across duplicates all the time,” said Krvaric, who almost always votes by mail himself. “What is the most guaranteed way that there will be no fraud and nobody voting that shouldn't be voting? It’s in-person. Show up in person, show your I.D. and vote that way.”
California does not require voters to show identification to vote. Instead, the registrar matches every signature from ballots to voter registration records.
“Over my 24 years of conducting elections, I have not seen any level of systemic fraud that is out there,” said Vu.
The registrar will be mailing registered voters a request to verify their information ahead of the November election. It will also use data from the U.S. Postal Service and state records to verify voter rolls.
More than 100 drop sites will be staffed during the election to collect ballots from people who do not want to use the mail. Vu stressed the county is actively tracking ballots from when they are printed, mailed to voters and returned.
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“We have the ability to suspend ballots should we need to. There are going to be situations where voters say that they didn't receive a mail ballot and so what we do is we suspend the original [ballot] that we issued to them and are able to send them a new one. If both of them come back, we have the ability for the one that got suspended to have it stopped,” explained Vu.
County Republicans urged voters to use the registrar’s online system to ensure their ballot was counted and address discrepancies.
“We're not going to change the voting system between the next 90 days. We're not naive to that but I just want to point out the risks that are out there,” said Krvaric. “At the very least, everybody should check their voter registration and sign up to make sure that their ballot is tracked back to the Registrar of Voters, so they have the peace of mind of knowing that their vote was counted.”
