California elections need a speed boost, a state nonprofit that works to improve the election process says — and that may come in the form of shortening the time voters have to fix issues with their ballot.
In California, every registered voter is mailed a ballot about a month before Election Day, and while voters have myriad ways to return or cast their ballots, most choose to mail them back.
That means it can take several days after Election Day for county election officials to count those ballots — particularly the ones that arrived in the seven days after the election and are still eligible to be counted — and state law also gives voters several weeks to fix, or “cure,” any problems with their ballot.
But there are 10 changes — some minor tweaks, some that would require major effort — that the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation recommends to speed up the election process.
“We want to actually shift the issue,” California Voter Foundation President Kim Alexander said. “We don’t want to be explaining why it takes so long, but actually start working on how we can start accelerating this process.”
Included in the list of recommendations is shortening the time frame for voters to fix issues with their signatures for vote-by-mail ballots from 22 to 14 days.
If a ballot signature does not match what is on file, or if a ballot envelope is unsigned, state law allows voters to fix the issue.
By shortening the timeline — and encouraging electronic curing — the California Voter Foundation hopes to speed up the way vote-by-mail ballots are processed. Some county registrars already allow electronic curing, including Orange County.
“The ballots that require curing are not a huge percentage of all the ballots, but they can be a deciding factor in close contests, and can hold up the ability of news organizations to call races as quickly as they would like to,” Alexander said.
But simply shortening only one timeline can be a dead-end fix, said Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page.
“I believe only changing the cure deadline will have limited impact on changing voter behavior regarding when they cast their ballot,” Page said.
Mail ballots can still be counted seven days after Election Day, so long as they were postmarked on or before the day of the election. Those later ballots may have signature issues to be addressed, too, Page said.
The California Voter Foundation also recommends counties report the number of ballots remaining to be processed in close races so that the media can call races more effectively. State law prevents county elections officials from certifying results until after the curing process, but media outlets aren’t bound by that restriction and can call races sooner.
Other recommendations include:
• Providing funding for equipment, staff, and facility enhancements
• Upgrading the state’s voter registration database
• Improving the Secretary of State’s reporting of unofficial election results
• Reporting the estimated number of ballots still needing to be processed
• Allowing counties to prioritize counting ballots for extremely close contests
But prioritizing certain races could lead to more sorting work and increase the processing time for ballots, according to Page.
“Asking counties to prioritize processing of ballots with close contests on them and to estimate ballots still being processed by contest or district would actually slow down ballot processing,” Page said.
While many of the recommendations are directed at the California secretary of state, lawmakers, county supervisors and registrars, the California Voter Foundation encourages voters themselves to help speed up the election process.
“If you want to see a faster vote count, get your ballot in a little earlier than Election Day, or better yet cast an in-person ballot,” Alexander said. “That is what I hope more voters will do.”
In addition to these recommendations, the California Voter Foundation is working to enact legislation and secure continuous funding for election enhancement initiatives.
The group has two active bills in the California Legislature: one that would encourage voters to turn in their vote-by-mail ballot as an in-person ballot on Election Day and another that would implement electronic signature curing.
And while the state budget appropriated $40 million this year for election improvements ahead of the November elections — which includes a one-time funding pool and other one-time grants — counties need ongoing funding to maintain improvements.
“If the state would fully fund the election mandates it has imposed on counties, the counties would have the resources that they need to do the job that the legislature has asked of them,” Alexander said.
While the California Voter Foundation continues to pursue different avenues for improving the ballot counting process, it hopes the recommendations bring awareness to changes that can be made ahead of the November election, such as turning in and curing vote-by-mail ballots sooner.
“Voters are investing a lot of time and energy into making their decisions and participating in the process, and they want to know the outcome of that effort,” Alexander said. “They’d like to know it sooner rather than later.”