Excerpt:

The 2024 election cycle is well underway, and in California, voters may be able to return their vote-by-mail ballots in person. 

In fact, voters in some counties, like Fresno and Tulare, have already participated via this new method for the March 5 Presidential Primary Election. 

Assembly Bill 626 was introduced by Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, chair of the California Assembly’s Elections Committee and former chief elections official in Santa Cruz County.

Experts said the new law is to make voting more accessible and speed up vote counting.

“To return a vote by mail ballot to an in-person voting location, and that [voters] don’t have to place that ballot in the identification envelope in certain circumstances,” Chris Micheli, adjunct professor at the McGeorge School of Law, discussing what the law does. 

Excerpt:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and a group opposing the Proposition 1 ballot measure are both urging voters whose ballots may have been rejected to fix their signatures in the too-close-to-call race.

Californians Against Prop. 1 on Friday began drawing attention to a Newsom effort to recruit volunteers who could contact voters whose mail-in ballots are being challenged due to signature problems.

Proposition 1 would restructure California’s Mental Health Services Act and provide $6.4 billion in bond money to increase the number of treatment beds and housing for those dealing with mental illness and addiction. The ballot measure remains deadlocked, with 50.1% of votes in favor of the initiative and 49.9% against it as of Monday morning, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. About 20,000 votes separate the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ sides.

Excerpt:

CLAIM: California is still counting votes more than a week after the March 5 primary, a sign the election was rigged.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. It is not unusual for California’s vote count to extend long past Election Day and there has been no indication of widespread fraud in this year’s primaries, experts told The Associated Press. Factors that contribute to this lengthy process include the large number of people who vote by mail, provisional ballots and signature verification.

THE FACTS: More than a week since Super Tuesday, social media users are erroneously claiming that California’s ongoing vote count is a sign of nefarious activities related to its March 5 primaries.

Excerpt:

Forget election night. Election season has been upon us for weeks, and it won’t be over anytime soon.

California’s prodigious adoption of vote-by-mail balloting has done more than fundamentally alter how we engage in the democratic process. The shift has also necessitated a cultural reconfiguration about election night results, and recast the timeline for learning outcomes in many races.

Definitive answers will likely only be clear in the most lopsided of contests by late Tuesday night. And conclusive results could take days or weeks to emerge in some of the tightest races.

- - - - - - - - -

Think of it this way: When a Californian shows up at a vote center and casts a ballot in person, as was once commonplace, all the verification is done up front at the vote center. When that ballot arrives for tabulation, no extra steps are needed.