This story ran in the Bloomberg Businessweek.
Inside a warehouse in Ponoma, California, the country’s largest vote by mail processing operation is hard at work. Setup by Los Angeles Country to handle mail ballots sent this year to all of its 5.6 million registered voters, the operation employs hundreds of workers who work around the clock receiving ballots (from the Postal Service as well as from official ballot drop boxes) and, in a race against time, prepare them for tallying on election night.
L.A. County is the country’s largest electoral district, yet most voters have no idea what happens to their ballot once they drop it in the mailbox. Each ballot cast by mail in Los Angeles County undergoes a six stage validation process prior to being counted on election night.
Stage one is incoming ballot envelope inspection. In this stage vote by mail ballot envelopes collected from the postal service (or from one of the county’s secure drop boxes) are sorted by postmark and inspected for required signature and any signs of tampering.
Stage two is “Automated Signature Validation” — mail ballot envelopes that pass initial inspection are run through automated scanners to validate that the signature on the envelope matches the signature of the voter on file with the county.
Stage three is a manual signature verification for mail ballot envelopes that fail automated signature validation. The signatures on these ballot envelopes are manually reviewed by multiple workers who each have access to an expanded set of signatures for each voter. If a signature cannot be manually verified, election officials contact the voter in order to obtain a signature verification statement.
Stage four is “ballot extraction” — mail ballot envelopes with valid signatures are sliced open so that workers can extract the enclosed ballot and ensure that it complies with marking instructions.
Stage five is “ballot remake” — ballots with that contain marking issues that do not obscure the intent of the voter are “remade” so that they can read by tabulation machines. The original ballot is attached to the remade ballot for auditing purposes.
Stage six is “Ballot Preparation” — ballots with proper markings are properly arranged and stored in tally boxes equipped with tamper evident seals. The boxes are transported to the county’s tally operations center where they will be tabulated on election night.
The county employs hundreds of workers to staff the operation which run almost around the clock for the weeks leading up to election night. For many it is their first time as election workers.
Let the counting begin.