California Secretary of State stresses importance of voting as Election Day nears
California Secretary of State Shirley Nash Weber emphasized the importance of voting during an interview with CBS News Los Angeles on Sunday, with just days until the highly anticipated Election Day.
A number of contentious and tight races will finally come to an end after millions of voters across the United States hit the polls, but Weber said it's always interesting to see how many people still decide not to vote with such important issues at hand.
"I work with a lot of young people and with adults as well, we often talk about the power of voting and helping people understand," Weber said. "You know, sometimes they say it's your responsibility — and it is your responsibility — but also, you don't realize what you give up when you give up your vote. When you give up your right to vote, you really empower other people to make decisions for you."
She also discussed the multitude of ways that people can vote now, including early polling and mail-in ballots. As of Saturday morning, Weber said that nearly 7 million voters had already submitted their ballots.
"There are various ways, and we've tried in California to make it very easy for people to vote, very convenient," she said.
Weber noted that every registered voter receives a ballot in the mail "that is catered to you, your community, who you are, who you're voting for."
Voters then have the choice to either drop the ballot in a dropbox, send it back through the mail, deliver it in person to a voting center or just fill out a separate ballot entirely in person at one of the state's hundreds of polling centers.
"We also don't have that 'one-and-done' experience like some states, where you have one day to vote and that's it," she said. "We allow you to have 11 days to vote. ... Weekend voting has been going on in the Los Angeles area for the last eights days now."
Weber also discussed the seemingly heightened sense of "voter anxiety" that many people across the nation have discussed in regards to voting in person, and the legitimacy behind the voting process.
She said that California has been targeted in dozens of lawsuits regarding voter fraud, but "in the end, we have gone to court on every case there's been and we have lost none of them."
"It has been proven that there is no major fraud in this United States in terms of the area voting," she said, noting that voting machines do not connect to the internet so fraud in that form is also not possible. "Every machine that's used in California is tested several times before it even gets to you to use."
Weber says that each ballot comes with an individual code, and that they are all available for tracking from the start to the end of the voting process, finishing when the vote is officially counted.
"We also verify every signature that's on those ballots that are returned. We have to look at every signature that's there to make sure that it is your ballot and it is your signature," she said.
Voters are also invited to observe the ballot-counting process at their local registrar's office, she said. While visitors aren't allowed into the same rooms as the vote counters, they're able to look on via windows or cameras that are sometimes placed over their shoulders.
"You can actually see and observe the process, and many people go in and want to observe it thinking something's gonna happen that's so unusual," she said. "A lot of them leave after a period of time because they said it's too boring."
Weber said that in the event that there is some sort of error on a ballot, be it a missed or incorrect signature, no date or any number of issues, voting officials will contact that person to get to the bottom of the issue.
"We track them down, we really do ... There are very few ballots that don't actually get counted," she said. "We take it very seriously in California."
