KPIX Vote Smart: Out Of 270,000 Early Ballots Already Cast In San Francisco Errors Are Rare
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) -- As of Friday, San Francisco has received nearly 270,000 early ballots. San Francisco Director of Elections, John Arntz says, a small fraction of which has been rejected for errors, human errors.
"There have been cases where voters forget to sign the envelope or if their signatures change or they sign it differently than the signature we have on the record. Then we reach out to the voter and remedy the situation," said Arntz.
If your ballot has issues, the Department of Elections will either call or email you about the problem.
Another issue is ballots with sloppy or no marks filled in. One more issue is envelopes arriving empty, with no ballot at all.
"The main thing is to get the ballot to us! If you have any concern about the ballot not counting, or the signatures or anything about the process, don't wait until the last second; get your ballot in now", said Arntz.
The number of erroneous ballots is actually quite small, comprising only 544 of the 270,000 received, so far. That's less than one quarter of one percent.
Of those 544 erroneous ballots, 278 signatures did not match, 168 had no signature and 27 had no ballot enclosed. The remainder is a mixture of voter mistakes.
Out on the street, folks had mixed reactions to voter errors.
Barbara Johnson just voted. She's not surprised. "People are preoccupied with a lot of things, like the Pandemic!"
Chloe Purdy just dropped off her ballot.
"With the stakes of this election, lots of people might have a bit of anxiety and when you've got anxiety, sometimes simple things aren't so simple," said Purdy.
Arntz says nearly 50 percent of mail in ballots have already been dropped off for election night counting.
"The ballots are being counted," he assures. "There isn't an issue with the process and if there is, the voters are being contacted."
