The primary election is officially upon us. On Monday, Feb. 5, county elections officials will send ballots out to the 1.8 million registered voters in Orange County.
As in years past, voters have several ways to vote, OC Registrar of Voters Bob Page said. Ballots can be mailed through the U.S. Postal Service, dropped off at a ballot box or delivered in person at a vote center. Voters can also vote in person at any vote center.
Orange County’s 122 secure ballot drop boxes will open on Feb. 5 and remain open until 8 p.m. on March 5. The boxes, individually keyed and anchored to the ground, will be open 24/7 until March 4.
On Feb. 24, 37 vote centers will open around the county, followed by another 146 on March 2. Unlike the ballot drop boxes that only allow voters to submit their ballots, vote centers provide in-person voting, voter registration services, replacement ballots and other general assistance.
The Registrar of Voters’ office will provide those services starting Feb. 5, Page said. For voters who decide to vote in-person at the Registrar’s office or a vote center, without the ballot that was mailed to them, that mailed ballot will be flagged and disqualified if it’s also submitted.
A list of where the vote centers are located and when they open can be found on the Registrar’s website.
The Registrar’s office has several measures in place to ensure election security, Page said. Physical security measures include bolting the ballot drop boxes to the concrete and having individual keys for all of the boxes that are made of thick metal, he said.
Other safety measures include using teams of two election workers to collect the voted ballots, tracking their vehicle’s location by GPS and requiring them to take and send photos to the office to confirm that they’ve closed it properly before moving on to the next box, he said. The ballot collection teams are given new, random routes every day for their safety as well as the safety of the ballots, Page said.
The Registrar’s office also conducts audits, Page said, where election workers manually hand count a randomly selected percentage of the ballots. Per state election law, election officials are required to randomly select at least 1% of the precincts in their respective county and hand count all of the ballots that were cast within those precincts.
The public is allowed by state law to observe election activity, including the manual hand count.
Page said security will tighten for people who want to come into the office to observe election activity.
On top of bag checks, the Registrar’s office will rent a metal detector to add to the facility next week, he said. At the end of the primary election cycle, he said, the Registrar’s office will evaluate whether it makes sense to continue paying for a rental or to purchase one.
This is the first election that a metal detector is used, he said.
“We have to balance complete transparency and access for observers while also keeping everybody safe, the voters, our staff as well as observers,” Page said.
Observers are not required to RSVP to take part in the process, said Enedina Chhim, a spokesperson for the Registrar. In addition to observing in person, the Registrar will set up live streams, including on election night.
Starting on Wednesday, Page said the office will have a phone bank set up for voter questions that will be handled by staff on a daily basis.
To ensure voters know where their ballot is, the Registrar has a tool that allows voters to track their ballot. Voters can sign up at ocvote.gov/track to receive notifications about the different steps in the process, Page said. Those who are signed up now will receive a notification when their ballot has been mailed. A notification will also be sent when ballots are returned to the Registrar, and when ballots are accepted for counting, the system will notify voters who have issues with their ballot, for example, forgetting to sign the envelope.
