On July 1 seven volunteers joined with members of the City Clerk’s Office to validate the questionable signatures on 58 ballots that were challenged by the staff. The volunteers carefully reviewed the signatures on the envelopes and a copy of the signatures on file with the Los Angeles County Voter Register. If four or more of the volunteers agreed that the signature was good then the ballots were set aside to be counter.

If the signatures could not be validated then the unopened ballots were place into a box with other election materials for six months as required by law that allows a person to challenge their ballot.

The staff did state that people change their signatures over the years and they should re-register to vote so their current signatures would be on record. Stamped signatures were not accepted in lieu of real signatures on the envelopes.

The staff and volunteers then proceeded to open the envelopes of approximately 3,000 vote by mail ballots received at City Hall before Noon on July 1.

The yellow envelopes contained ballots from permanent vote by mail voters. The white envelopes contained ballots from residents who requested to vote by mail in this election.

The City Clerk’s Office had combined several precincts into eight polling places for this citywide election.

The volunteers opened each envelope and checked the condition of each ballot.  Any ballots that were damaged in the mail or the voter did not complete the circle in blue or black ink were duplicated by the staff so they could be counted in the ballot machine on July 2.  The staff kept a log of ballots duplicated.

A blue marker was used on any ballot with an incomplete circle by staff so the machine could count the vote as the machine did not count incomplete marks.

The military vote by mail ballots were faxed to the military members and the paper marked with their votes was mailed back to City Hall in a blue envelope. The staff then duplicated the ballots to be counted.

The volunteers and staff each validated the number of ballots matched the gray sleeves and envelopes so no vote would be lost.

The ballots were then placed in boxes for the Election Day count and the gray sleeves and envelopers were placed in another box holding election materials as required by law.

The staff and volunteers completed this validation of vote by mail ballots in four hours.

On July 2 three volunteers met with the City Clerk’s staff to validate six vote by mail signatures and open 400 vote by mail ballots received by mail or hand carried to City Hall by Noon on July 2.

The staff and volunteers completed this verification of vote by mail ballots in one hour and 15 minutes.

All of the vote by mail ballots received by Noon on July 2 were counted after the polls closed at 8 PM on Election Day.

Any vote by mail ballots received by the afternoon mail or hand carried to the polls or provisional ballots completed at the polls would be counted after Election Day.

Any vote by mail ballots received after the polls closed would not be counted in this election.

All of the ballots and registration signature books will be held for six months as required by law at City Hall.