The county begins its hand count, a random 1 percent of ballots checked against the machines
The Registrar of Voters began the routine 1 percent manual tally for the November 3 general election on Tuesday, hand counting randomly selected batches of mail and vote center ballots and comparing them with the voting system totals. Results stay unofficial until certification on December 3.
SAN DIEGO: The count after the count has begun. The San Diego County Registrar of Voters is conducting its routine 1 percent manual tally for the November 3 Gubernatorial General Election, the county reported on Tuesday, a required step to uphold transparency and confirm the accuracy of the election results before they are certified.
The process is a hand count with a narrow target. Workers tally a randomly selected 1 percent of mail ballot batches and 1 percent of vote center ballot batches, and compare those totals against the results produced by the voting system. Under state law, the Registrar's public notice says, a public manual tally is part of the official canvass whenever a voting system is used in an election, and the tally, like every component of the canvass, is open to public observation.
How the sample was drawn
The batches under the hand count were not chosen by the office alone. The sample was selected during a public drawing on Thursday, November 5, conducted with numbered ping pong balls, and the Registrar's notice fixed that drawing at 10 a.m. and the start of the tally itself at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, November 10. If a contest on the ballot is not represented in the initial 1 percent sample, the office selects additional batches so that every contest is counted, the county said.
The tally runs each day until every selected batch has been reviewed, during normal business hours, Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., according to the notice. It pauses on Wednesday, November 11, when the Registrar's office is closed for the county holiday, and resumes with the business week.
Unofficial until December 3
Nothing the tally touches this week changes a single reported result by itself. Election results remain unofficial until certification on December 3, the county said, and updated and certified results will be posted at sdvote.com. The hand count is the canvass doing its oldest job in public: checking the machines against the paper, one batch in a hundred, before the county signs its name to the outcome.
None to date. The Tribune corrects errors promptly and transparently. Read our corrections policy.
