Riverside County Registrar of Voters begins to open up ballots
Riverside County is expecting more mail-in ballots this year than usual, so the Registrar of Voters office has begun unsealing ballots and preparing them for counting.
It's a highly manual process with these machines unsealing the ballots, which then have to be separated from the envelopes they're in.
The ballots are then brought into a separate room where they are being checked for any imperfections that could potentially clog up the counting machines. These ballots won't be counted until election day.
Want more on the county's ballot counting process? Check out Jake's Twitter Thread on the Registrar's Office:
We’re at the @RivCoRegistrar in Riverside, where thousands of ballots have begun being unsealed in preparation for counting on Election Day. Thread
— Jake Ingrassia (@JakeKESQ) October 22, 2020@KESQ pic.twitter.com/3vbsDkTpo4
It's a lot of labor, but the county Registrar Rebecca Spencer says they are prepared.
"So we have a night shift starting on Monday, so basically we will be a 24/7 operation starting on Monday. We have staff dedicated to signature verifying the mail-in ballots that come in and staff that are dedicated to opening up those envelopes and removing the ballot and flattening out and another set of staff that will run them and scan them through the ballot counting equipment. So lot's of people here in our office and pretty much a 24/7 operation," Spencer told News Channel 3.
This is the first major election in which the new ballot counting machines are being deployed in Riverside County.
The machines are able to process up to 400 ballots per minute.
More than 1.2 illion ballots were issued in this election and, so far, more than 247,000 ballots have been returned.
Still deciding on what candidate or proposition to vote for? Check out our voter guide at KESQ.com/VoterGuide
Stay with News Channel 3 for continuing election day coverage.
