Demystifying the Mysterious: California’s Election Laws
Part 7: Ballot Curing

Everybody loves a mystery, right?

When curled up on the couch or bed, comfy and cozy - maybe!

But when the very laws that govern our lives and our freedoms

are a mystery to us, that’s a different thing altogether.

California’s election laws are definitely a mystery to most Californians. They are passed in obscurity and only those devoted to finding their way through the maze of legislative procedure and legalistic, convoluted language can begin to follow the evolution (or devolution) of California’s electoral process.

When the CA state legislature passes laws that diminish or effectively eliminate any semblance of fair, honest and transparent elections, we no longer have a Republic.

Failure to fight against such laws IS NOT AN OPTION

if we care about our future and that of our state and nation.

In Part 6 of this article series, “Demystifying the Mysterious: California’s Election Laws,” the topic of extended deadlines was introduced. Deadlines such as those governing ballot submission and voter registration have been extended beyond all necessity and reason, making integrity virtually impossible to maintain.

As usual, such actions were “justified” as an effort to ensure more “access,” avoid disenfranchisement, and enhance “inclusivity.” All of these are wonderful goals. Every eligible citizen deserves an unimpeded path to registration and voting.

There is a HUGE difference between expanding access and

protecting against election fraud and manipulation.

California has completely ignored the difference.

One of the extensions of grace that may now have gone too far is the “curing process”.  In 2015, strengthened in 2018, California passed a bill to allow eight additional days after ballot receipt for a voter to “cure” a signature error. The law mandated contacting the voter with a notification of the situation and the opportunity to correct the error.

In a clear overstepping of executive authority by taking on a legislative role, Secretary of State Alex Padilla issued an advisory to the 58 county Registrars of Voters that the notification and curing practice can and should continue up to the date of certification.

In 2019, SB 523 officially extended the curing deadline

to two days before certification, codifying Padilla’s illegal advisory.

EIPCa’s concerns about such a generous grace period are:

• While ensuring fewer ballots will be rejected as a result of voter carelessness, the practice introduces unacceptable potential “unintended” consequences:

• County officials, already pressed by certification deadline, and overwhelmed with mounting numbers of mail, conditional and provisional ballots—all time and labor-intensive—will not have the time or personnel to accomplish nor process voter outreach. This will inevitably lead to looser standards of signature comparison (already extremely liberal) and thus the counting of untold numbers of fraudulent ballots.

• Verification by voter is done by downloading a form online or responding with a form sent in the mail.  The voter may never see original signature and may inadvertently “verify” a fraudulent one, or may be sent a copy of the “correct” signature, allowing easy forgery.
  

• While the surface intention of preventing disenfranchisement of eligible voters is good, these extensions will intertwine with the processing of vote by mail and provisional ballots, and potentially facilitate the counting of fraudulent ballots while the voters’ responses are pending.

The Inconvenient Truth: None of this is necessary.

Ballots cast outside the supervision of elections officials are subject to error and manipulation. If ballots were required to be cast at the polls or County Elections Office, none of the above complicated and insecure procedures to give careless voters “another chance” would be necessary!

• The 2-3% of individuals with a verifiable need to vote by mail should be required to request a mail-in ballot for each election they need it.

• Those completed ballots should be required to be in the hands of elections officials no later than 8:00 p.m. on the last day of voting (the same deadline for in-person voters), delivered only by the voter or a designated family or household member to a polling location or the County Elections Office.

• Sending ballots though the mail should be discouraged. The current accommodations for overseas voters should remain in place.

• All other voters should be required to vote in person at their legitimate voting location.

• To accommodate virtually all potential scheduling conflicts that might prevent citizens from being able to vote, polling locations should be open on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday (the traditional Election Day).

If such a simple system were to be implemented, no ballots would need curing!

The entire bureaucratic, highly subjective, imprecise, expensive

and time/labor intensive MESS would evaporate.

Californians would gain timely election results provided by a more fiscally responsible and more trustworthy election system.

NOTE:

Prior to last November’s election, we began our “Demystifying the Mysterious: California’s Election Laws” series of articles.

You may find parts 1-6 under the “Newsletters/Articles” tab at www.eip-ca.com 

We encourage you to read them if you haven’t and review them if you have.

pdf of article 

EIPCa is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) charity. Contributions are tax deductible.
Demystifying the Mysterious - Part 7: Ballot Curing     ©Election Integrity Project®California, Inc. copyrighted 2023