Except for the vandalism of a lock box for absentee ballots, your vote is safe.
Except for the 300 ballots found in the back seat of a car in Torrance, your absentee ballot is safe.
How many times will government say “except for”?
How about, except for 440,000 ballots going to dead people and folks that no longer live in California, the election is fair and honest?
Anyone claiming California elections are fair and honest are either naïve or protecting the guilty. It is time for us to face the truth and to demand investigations, audits and an end to fraud via the absentee ballot.
How secure are ballot drop-off boxes in the Inland Empire?
By Jeff Horseman,| The Press-Enterprise, 8/26/21
balllots for the Sept. 14 recall election are secure, elections officials said this week.
Riverside, San Bernardino, and Los Angeles counties all have countywide networks of drop boxes for ballots mailed to voters in the election to decide whether Gov. Gavin Newsom should be removed from office before his term ends in 2022.
Every California voter should have received a recall election ballot in the mail. They can mail ballots back, put them in a drop box or vote in-person early or on Sept. 14. Drop boxes will accept ballots until 8 p.m. election night, and ballots postmarked on or before Election Day and received by county registrars by Sept. 21 will be counted.
Bob Page, San Bernardino County’s registrar of voters, said in an email that ballot box security “is of utmost importance.”
In choosing where boxes go, Page said his office considers how accessible the locations are to voters and how closely the boxes can be watched. The vandalized box was in front of a county Transitional Assistance Department building and “regular monitoring by that department … led to a quick response,” he said.
“Additionally, countywide, we are reminding all facilities hosting drop boxes to monitor on a daily basis and report any damage discovered,” Page added.
The vandalism was the first of its kind, Page said, although there have been a couple incidents in which drop boxes were graffitied.
Riverside County Registrar of Voters Rebecca Spencer said via email that the only unstaffed ballot box in the county is outside the entrance to the registrar’s Riverside headquarters. That one is guarded by surveillance cameras and a 24-hour security guard service, she said.
All other boxes have at least two staff members to greet voters and make sure ballots are signed before they’re put into the box, said Spencer, who added that the county has seen no ballot box vandalism.
Mike Sanchez, a spokesman for the L.A. County registrar-recorder/county clerk, said via email that all county drop boxes “comply with Secretary of State regulations and are securely bolted and/or secured in place at their respective location.”
Staff members collect ballots from those boxes daily and when they do, they check each box for vandalism or damage, Sanchez said, adding his office has an online tool for the public to report damaged ballot boxes.
State regulations call for outdoor, unstaffed drop boxes to be “securely fastened in a manner as to prevent moving or tampering” such as fastening them to concrete. “If feasible, drop boxes shall be monitored by a video security surveillance system” and drop boxes must be secured “by a lock or sealable with a tamper-evident seal.”
Ballots must be removed from boxes every 96 hours, excluding weekends, between the 29th and 10th day before an election. After that, ballots must be retrieved every 24 hours.
On Tuesday, Aug. 24, San Bernardino County elections officials announced a drop box at 1627 E. Holt Blvd. in Ontario had been vandalized between 5 p.m. Aug. 18 and 8 a.m. Aug. 19 and that voters who deposited their ballots at that location before Aug. 19 should check to see if the Registrar of Voters has received their ballots.
One undamaged mail ballot was recovered from the damaged drop box. The vandalized box was replaced Aug. 20 and the registrar’s office now checks boxes more frequently, Page said.
Ballots did not appear to be the target of the vandalism, Page said. Another drop box that accepts forms and information for those in need of government assistance also was vandalized in the same location.
News of the Ontario ballot box vandalism came after Torrance police announced the finding of 300 recall ballots in the vehicle of an unconscious man in a 7-Eleven parking lot. Officers also found a loaded gun, drugs, drivers’ licenses and credit cards with other people’s names in the vehicle and none of the ballots appear to have been tampered with, authorities said.
Ballot box security was at issue last year in a dispute between Spencer and Riverside County Supervisor Karen Spiegel over the ballot box outside the registrar’s headquarters.
Spencer said at the time that Spiegel and District Attorney Mike Hestrin were worried the box wasn’t secure and sought its removal, though in Spencer’s view it was just as secure as a mailbox 50 feet away and removing the box could be interpreted as voter suppression.
Hestrin and Spiegel denied ordering the box to be removed. Spiegel said in March she asked about moving the box inside, as is the practice in many cities.
