San Diego County election officials say the transition back to paper ballots has been mostly smooth. All precincts are accounted for, but absentee and provisional ballots will still take weeks to count. KPBS reporter Andrew Phelps camped out at the Registrar of Voters office overnight. Here is his report.
If you're like most San Diegans, you voted on paper yesterday.
You handed it to a poll worker, who put it in a cardboard box till it was hauled to the registrar's office in Kearny Mesa.
That's where I spent Election Night. Hundreds of people scanned each and every ballot -- some 615,000 of them. This used to be something you would do after voting, but now it's done here to settle security concerns.
What looks like a tour group turns out to be a county grand jury, observing the process. Charlie Wallis is showing them around. One of the observers says he saw something troubling.
Observer: When they're running ballots in the readers there, I saw two ballots that had written on them "spoiled" that came on through.
Wallis: That's not good. Absolutely not good. The answer is, that shouldn't happen.
Wallis leaves to have a stern conversation, but it turns out nothing was out of order. Assistant Registrar Michael Vu explains every ballot must be counted, even spoiled ones that get disregarded later, during the 28-day certification.
Vu: We try to learn as much as possible so, if you will, we become forensic scientists during those 28 days to really look at what the poll workers did if we need to contact the poll workers, but really have that 28 days to really breathe for a moment before we go in and certify and make it official.
It's all about security versus speed. The Secretary of State decertified electronic voting machines after they were deemed vulnerable to hackers. So they're all sitting idle at the registrar's office, right behind the people counting: $30 million worth of useless machines. And we voted on paper again yesterday, which means we'll have to wait longer for final results.
But is paper more any more secure? The county's Mike Workman rolls his eyes when I ask. Look at the absentee process, for example.
Workman: When you pop that thing in the mail do you know your ballot ever got counted? Do you know it ever made it here? Mailman had a bad day. God knows they've been known to have that.
I also asked him how to prevent people from lying about their identity at polling places. Workman doesn't have a good answer for that either. He says elections are run by human beings, after all.
Workman: The bottom line is, what's secure? You know, the American process of elections is you, me, our friends, our neighbors, our kids, our parents are volunteering to see this process go through.
Deborah Seiler, the registrar, says the controversy over voting machines is exaggerated. She says hackers could never get the kind of access they need to break in.
Seiler: In all of our elections in San Diego County, we've tried to implement secure procedures. You know, we have chain of custody, and we certainly trust our poll workers, we trust the people we work with. We have Sheriff reserve officers accompanying those ballots back into our office. We observe the two-person rule when the precinct inspector brings the ballots back to the collections center.
It turns out San Diego County is spared of another new rule that Seiler fought to overturn. None of the races are close enough to require a hand re-count.
Andrew Phelps, KPBS News.
