Willie Brown on Mail-in Ballots

Chronicle columnist and former SF Mayor and Speaker Willie Brown bills himself as a pragmatic politician and I mostly agree.  I also like pragmatism--a lot.  So when Willie goes against his natural partisan leanings it's refreshing and enlightening.  With election day approaching and a number of important measures on the ballot, here's what he had to say on Sunday:

Most states require voters to ask for mail ballots, which is how California used to do it. That way, they know a real person is reaching out.  The way it’s working in California this year, however, every active voter on the state rolls will be sent a ballot. No request required.   What much of the public does not know is that it’s very hard to strike someone from the voter rolls. The rule is, if someone misses two consecutive federal general elections — a presidential election and a midterm — and then misses two more after failing to respond to a mailed query from county registrars, they’re supposed to be tossed off the rolls.

So, you can be gone from your registered address — or dead — for a long time before the state gets around to erasing you. Some estimates say that up to 10% of California’s 20 million registered voters aren’t where the state thinks they are.  Nonetheless, ballots will be going to their listed addresses. So some people who have moved won’t get ballots. Residents at the old addresses will get ballots for people who are no longer living there or are no longer living, period.

With the COVID exodus from the big and not-so-big cities, that 10% estimate may be more like 15% or more right now.  If that concern is a "cockamamie voter fraud conspiracy" to use Willie's term, so be it.  But if some of the local races or measure are real close, the recount and challenges could take awhile.

Comments

[Gerald Weisl]

The registrars claim to verify signatures on those ballots as a means of assuring they are "authentic" and legal.

[Phinancier]

What could go wrong with that? >sarcasm<

[HMB]

My son, whose signature changed a lot from high school, when he first registered, got a ballot returned when he voted four years ago and he had to return an affidavit with this new signature, so the system CAN work.

[HMB]

typo: HIS signature

[[email protected]]

Come on 'Old White People." There are No Ghosts, No Big Foot, No UFO's, and defiantly no conspiracy regarding mail in Voting.
Stop being Kooky OR your adult children will put you in the Horrible Old Folks Home across the street from the Burlingame Police Dept.

[hillsider]

Willie Brown is an 'Old White Person'. Get back on the meds.

[Joe]

Our very own City Clerk offered to answer any questions I may have about mail-in ballots as she has substantial experience prior to taking this job. I'll post a couple of my questions and her responses here. First:

What do you think of the estimates Willie Brown notes that 10% of RVs aren’t at their registered addresses? That’s 2M ballots going somewhere.

I’m not sure about his exact estimate or where he got that number from, but this is what I can tell you. In order for the State to allow same day registration (register and vote on Election Day), the State had to first create a unified voter registration/record system. VoteCal was put into place in 2016/2017. VoteCal connected all the counties’ voter rolls. It does the following:
• Voter registration applications and existing voter records are run against California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation records to cancel registration of felons
• Voter registration applications and existing voter records are run against California Department of Public Health records to remove deceased voters
• Exchanges information with California Employment Development Department to get national address change information for voter registration records. Therefore, if the voter’s information has changed because the vote has moved to a new county, their voting history and record will be transferred to that county.
• Interacts with the DMV system for two reasons
o If the individual completes an application for a driver’s license, ID card, or a change of address form, the DMV will automatically register the individual to vote unless they opt out of automatic voter registration
o If a voter registers to vote online at www.registertovote.ca.gov, the signature that is used for their voter registration is from their driver’s license application.
• And most importantly VoteCal is statewide, now the 58 counties will be able to move voters from one county’s roll to the other with ease. And remove voters from their rolls that have moved.
Prior to VoteCal, and while I was at the Elections Office, cleaning the roll was a lot more difficult. We would receive a monthly report from the San Mateo County Public Health Department about individuals who had died in the county. For individuals who had died outside of the county, we relied on jury duty notices, DMV changes, and letters from the deceased’s family. The DMV’s system would interact with ours to let us know when an individual had registered a vehicle, gotten a driver’s license, change of address form, etc. so that we could track it against our system. We scanned voter registration cards, and our system would read them as best as it could. We would manually correct information that the system couldn’t read. And lastly, we exchanged information with other counties and states. You may not have noticed it, but when you register to vote, the form asks if you are registered or have been registered before, where were you registered. We got daily mail from states and counties alerting us that one of our voters was now in their county or state.

This is all to say the voter roll is getting cleaner as technology improves. Are ballots still sent to old addresses occasionally? Of course. This also happens when voters move overseas and become ex-pats. They remain properly registered at their old address and occasionally information will be sent to their stateside address instead of their overseas address.

I know that this is a long-winded answer, but I think it’s important to note the processes that have been put in place to clean the roll. Ballots will occasionally be sent to old addresses, but that’s where the signature checking process that the County undertakes comes into play. The signature on the envelope has to match with what’s on record, which includes petitions the voter has signed, Election forms, and their voter registration card.

[Joe]

Here's another Q&A from the Clerk:

If someone has moved, what happens to that ballot? It shouldn’t just be forwarded since the ballot composition might not match their new location? If someone from San Mateo moves to B’game they would be voting on San Mateo measures.

The main safeguard for your question is that the United States Postal Service doesn’t forward official election related mail. Therefore, ballots can’t be forwarded to a new address. What happens a majority of the time in this situation is that a voter who has moved will go to their old polling place, or now a Voting Center, on Election Day and state that they didn’t receive their ballot. When the staffer looks up their information, it comes up that they moved. The staffer will now re-register them and give them their proper ballot. Prior to same-day registration, we’d give them a provisional ballot, which would include a registration form. This wouldn’t be processed until we could verify all the information.

Also, hopefully, VoteCal catches their move prior to them having to go into a Vote Center to re-register. But when people move, they often don’t realize they need to re-register even if it is across the street or into a different apartment in their building. The Elections Office and the Secretary of State have done a great job promoting “check your voter status,” so this will catch a few of those voters as well.

For those whose ballot is sent to the wrong address, the Elections Office will often get a phone call from the new dwellers alerting the office of the issue. The Elections Office will then do a postcard mailing to try to check the voter’s address. The wrongly sent ballot is then destroyed, dropped off at the Elections Office, or mailed back to the Elections Office.

[Phinancier]

There is policy and there is practice. Or failed practice. Twitter shut down former acting director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell for the crime of posting photos of two California ballots sent to a couple who have been dead for ten (10) years. Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/10/planning_something_sinister_twitter_shuts_down_ric_grenell_for_tweet_demonstrating_ballot_fraud.html#ixzz6aY0Gmpsv
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

[MBGA]

There's no cheating going on...There's no cheating going on...There's no cheating going on...There's no cheating going on...There's no cheating going on...There's no cheating going on...

Tell the lie long enough and the masses believe it.

https://streamable.com/z94se1

[Paloma Ave]

Willie had a great observation in his last column:

The November election will probably turn California an even deeper shade of blue than it already is. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Democrats now hold 29 seats in the state Senate to Republicans’ 11 seats. With a blue wave heading our way, thanks to the chance to vote President Trump out of office, the spillover effect could raise the Democratic total to 35 Senate seats to just five for the GOP.

California is going to be almost literally a one-party state. Democrats may well celebrate. They shouldn’t.

For decades, California was governed by a loose combination of moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans. Their mutual need for each other’s votes created a middle ground that kept each party’s more militant wings in check.

That’s already gone, with Democrats holding two-thirds supermajorities in both the Senate and Assembly even before the election. The battles are largely between progressive Democrats and moderate Democrats, with progressives challenging the moderates at every turn. That will only intensify with the accelerated disappearance of Republicans.

In other words, the Legislature could turn into an expanded version of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Who’s up for that?...

...If there is one thing Democrats do well, it’s eat their own.