[EL] Counting By-Mail ballots is hard

Mon Mar 23 10:52:55 PDT 2020

For clarification:

I've been following SF's canvass pretty closely (as I am a voter in the
City and County). San Francisco's last ballot count was on March 13th (see
prelim report 13)
<https://sfelections.sfgov.org/march-3-2020-election-results-detailed-reports>.
On March March 12th there were less than 500
<https://sfelections.sfgov.org/article/preliminary-election-results-report-12-and-ballot-processing-update-san-francisco-department>
ballots
remaining to be counted, and nearly all remaining ballots were counted on
the 13th
<https://sfelections.sfgov.org/article/preliminary-election-results-report-13-and-ballot-processing-update-san-francisco-department>.
The SF DOE stated that it received approximately 34,000 provisional ballots
<https://sfelections.sfgov.org/article/preliminary-election-results-report-12-and-ballot-processing-update-san-francisco-department>.
I suspect any remaining ballots will be counted when workers can get back
to work.

On March 12th, the County began the process of selecting it's ballots for
the 1% manual tally. No update yet, but given the shelter in place notice,
it's not clear when the SF will complete it's canvass. Although
counties have until the 30th day after the election to complete their
canvass.

This is not to take away from concerns over VBM implementation. With any
large scale move to VBM, best practices should be adopted.

Pedro

Pedro Hernandez
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Senior Policy Coordinator, Voting Rights & Ranked Choice Voting
http://fairvote.org

On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 9:04 PM Douglas Johnson <djohnson at ndcresearch.com>
wrote:

> To reinforce the Detroit and other stories' ideas that managing
> large-scale by-mail ballots is hard:
>
> Today is March 19th, sixteen days after California's primary election. Yet
> San Francisco has yet to count over 25% of the ballots cast in the county.
> While the time required to process provisional ballots is understandable,
> 88,000 of the remaining 110,000 ballots left to count in San Francisco are
> by-mail ballots. Granted, San Francisco is using new voting equipment this
> election -- and I suspect the learning curve with the new equipment is why
> the counting delays there are more there than in other California counties
> (disclaimer: I am guessing about that as I have no inside knowledge into
> SF's operations) -- but what is proposed in this debate is new voting
> equipment on a massive, almost national, scale.
>
> California is a state that has had no-excuse by-mail voting for many, many
> years, and the state has experience processing 25%, 33% and even 50% of all
> ballots cast coming in by mail. The state's election officials are among
> the most-experienced and most-expert with by-mail voting in the country.
> Yet this undertaking remains a difficult logistical challenge.
>
> I support the massive expansion of by-mail voting for this November
> election. But we should not under-estimate how hard that will be to
> implement -- and how long it will take to count those votes.
>
> - Doug
>
> Douglas Johnson
> Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 8:28 PM Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> “Voting by Mail Is the Hot New Idea. Is There Time to Make It Work?”
>> <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110125>
>>
>> Posted on March 19, 2020 8:18 pm <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110125>
>> by *Rick Hasen* <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> NYT reports.
>> <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/politics/voting-by-mail-coronavirus.html>
>>
>> [image: Share]
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D110125&title=%E2%80%9CVoting%20by%20Mail%20Is%20the%20Hot%20New%20Idea.%20Is%20There%20Time%20to%20Make%20It%20Work%3F%E2%80%9D>
>>
>> Posted in absentee ballots <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, election
>> administration <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Must-read from Nate Persily and Charles Stewart: “Ten Recommendations to
>> Ensure a Healthy and Trustworthy 2020 Election”
>> <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110119>
>>
>> Posted on March 19, 2020 2:14 pm <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110119>
>> by *Rick Hasen* <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> Over
>> <https://www.lawfareblog.com/ten-recommendations-ensure-healthy-and-trustworthy-2020-election> at
>> Lawfare:
>>
>> *This past week has provided ample evidence that states are in need of
>> reliable plans to carry out elections without interruption in the face of
>> the unfolding medical crisis. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine caused alarm when
>> he decided
>> <https://www.cleveland.com/open/2020/03/ohio-polls-remain-closed-following-overnight-ruling-from-ohio-supreme-court.html> to
>> postpone the presidential primary the day before it was scheduled to occur.
>> DeWine’s action may have been justified on public health grounds, but it
>> illustrated the confusion that can arise when states are caught between
>> opening polling places and endangering the health of citizens. Meanwhile,
>> the governor of Arizona and the director of elections for Maricopa
>> County fought
>> <https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2020/03/13/court-stops-county-recorder-from-sending-ballots-to-all-voters-for-tuesday-election/> over
>> whether the county could send out mail-in ballots even to voters who have
>> not requested them. Their battle illustrates that without a definitive
>> statewide plan, state and local election officials can be locked in
>> litigation when they should be cooperating to face serious challenges to
>> the continuity of elections.*
>>
>> *Despite the challenge presented by COVID-19, the 2020 elections must go
>> forward. The elections to be held on Nov. 3 are not optional. They cannot
>> be postponed, even if dangers to public health remain as great as they are
>> likely to get over the next few weeks. The nation must act now to ensure
>> that there will be no doubt, regardless of the spread of infection, that
>> the elections will be conducted on schedule and that they will be free and
>> fair.*
>>
>> *Doing so requires an effort in election resilience that is unprecedented
>> in American history. However, there are some clear paths toward achieving
>> the desired result. We offer 10 steps in that direction.*
>>
>> [image: Share]
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D110119&title=Must-read%20from%20Nate%20Persily%20and%20Charles%20Stewart%3A%20%E2%80%9CTen%20Recommendations%20to%20Ensure%20a%20Healthy%20and%20Trustworthy%202020%20Election%E2%80%9D>
>>
>> Posted in Uncategorized <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> “Coronavirus threatens the November election, can vote by mail save it?”
>> <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110117>
>>
>> Posted on March 19, 2020 12:20 pm <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110117>
>>  by *Rick Hasen* <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> Evan Halper
>> <https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-19/calls-mount-making-november-mail-in-ballot> for
>> the LAT.
>>
>> [image: Share]
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D110117&title=%E2%80%9CCoronavirus%20threatens%20the%20November%20election%2C%20can%20vote%20by%20mail%20save%20it%3F%E2%80%9D>
>>
>> Posted in Uncategorized <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> National Vote at Home Issues Its Report on Scaling Up Absentee Balloting
>> for November in Light of COVID-19 <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110105>
>>
>> Posted on March 19, 2020 7:09 am <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110105>
>> by *Rick Hasen* <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> You can read the report here
>> <https://www.voteathome.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/VAHScale_StrategyPlan.pdf>
>> .
>>
>> [image: Share]
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D110105&title=National%20Vote%20at%20Home%20Issues%20Its%20Report%20on%20Scaling%20Up%20Absentee%20Balloting%20for%20November%20in%20Light%20of%20COVID-19>
>>
>> Posted in election administration <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Steven Rosenfeld Looks Under the Hood at Detroit’s Absentee Ballot
>> Processing, and It is Not Pretty <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110101>
>>
>> Posted on March 19, 2020 7:04 am <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110101>
>> by *Rick Hasen* <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> For those like me who want and expect expanded absentee balloting in
>> November, a reminder
>> <https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/why-nationwide-voting-by-mail-isnt-a-silver-bullet-in-a-pandemic/> that
>> there’s a lot of work to do.
>>
>> [image: Share]
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D110101&title=Steven%20Rosenfeld%20Looks%20Under%20the%20Hood%20at%20Detroit%E2%80%99s%20Absentee%20Ballot%20Processing%2C%20and%20It%20is%20Not%20Pretty>
>>
>> Posted in absentee ballots <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, election
>> administration <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Rick Hasen
>>
>> Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
>>
>> UC Irvine School of Law
>>
>> 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
>>
>> Irvine, CA 92697-8000
>>
>> 949.824.3072 - office
>>
>> rhasen at law.uci.edu
>>
>> http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
>>
>> http://electionlawblog.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> - Doug
>
> Douglas Johnson
> National Demographics Corporation
> djohnson at NDCresearch.com
> phone 310-200-2058
> fax 818-254-1221
> _______________________________________________
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