Lots of unexpected ballots are showing up in people’s mailboxes. As predicted. I’m seeing such reports on the “NextDoor” app and on Facebook. Citizens are calling the registrar’s office, favorite candidates, and their political party headquarters, asking, “What do I DO?”
One of my friends received THREE ballots, all addressed to HER! Another friend received one for her grown son, who she tells me moved out of state over a decade ago. A neighbor opened his mailbox to find a ballot addressed to a man he didn’t know. Another reported that ballots had arrived for the previous homeowners – people from whom their family purchased the house 12 years ago!
Bottom line – our voter rolls are a mess. And the state knows it, because they were sued by Judicial Watch and Election Integrity Project California last year. California LOST the case, and officials were ordered to clean up their voting lists. Going into this election cycle, Secretary of State Alex Padilla and his cronies in Democrat-run big cities have failed to follow through on the court’s mandates.
So what do you do if an “extra” ballot has arrived at your house? The county registrar is advising citizens to throw it away. This is bad advice. REALLY bad!
DO NOT discard that ballot! Instead, shoot a picture of it, and then tuck it away in a safe place. It will be needed as evidence of government mismanagement. Visit the website of Election Integrity Project California (EIP-CA) to download a “Citizen Incident Statement” form. Despite their victory in court against the state of California, EIP-CA must continue its legal battle to get voter rolls and voting procedures cleaned up.
The web address is www.EIP-CA.com/contact, where you will find links to the one-page form and instruction sheet. The form may be used for other voting irregularities you may witness, so stay alert! If you have questions, send an email [email protected].
The stray ballots mentioned above are only the tip of the iceberg. Padilla has made a bad situation even worse! On Sept. 28 (yes, mere DAYS ago), he released a whole host of regulations regarding mail-in ballots and signature verification, effective immediately. A scan of the original document, stamped “EMERGENCY” is available online at the SOS website, http://bit.ly/NewVoteRegs2020.
Here’s a good one. You can now vote simply by scrawling your “voting responses on paper other than a ballot” and throwing it into an envelope. Who needs an actual ballot? No, I’m not kidding.
Government bureaucrats and the mainstream media have been reassuring the public for months that mail ballots are secure, thanks to watermarks on printed ballots and unique codes on return envelopes that identify each voter. Regulations 20991(b) (9), (10) and (11) effectively destroy those reassurances.
When it comes to signature verification, there are dozens of new guidelines to be considered in determining if a ballot was actually signed by the voter. Reading them over, it’s doubtful ANY ballot will be rejected. Regulation 20960 (c) actually states, “Exact matches are not required for an elections official to confirm a valid signature.” Guess it depends on your definition of “exact.”
“Officials” are to consider as explanations for signature discrepancies some of the following: “evidence of shaking could be the result of aging,” “the signature…may have been written in haste,” and, my favorite, “the voter’s signature style could have changed over time.” Again, not kidding.
Incidents that make the news don’t add much to citizen confidence.
More than 2,000 voters in Woodland Hills received ballots missing the page that included the presidential race! But, hey, no worries – the registrar reprinted and mailed out new ones. Wait, what? What’s to be done with the originals sent out?
More recently, dozens of ballots were found in the trash in Santa Monica and in Twentynine Palms. There are similar stories across the nation.
With minimum-wage, untrained vote processors reviewing signatures, thousands of ballots are routinely rejected in California elections. State law does not require that voters be notified when their ballots are rejected. But there IS hope.
If you submit your ballot via mail or by placing it in a so-called “secure” vote by mail drop box around town, you can follow up. To be sure your ballot was received, you can track it at https://california.ballottrax.net/voter/.
Alternatively, you can bring that mailed ballot to any vote center in the county, surrender it and cast your vote in person. To find a convenient vote center, go to https://locator.lavote.net/locations. You may want to VOID that mail-in ballot right there in front of witnesses, rather than handing it over intact. Just a thought.
Patricia Suzanne is a professional writer, retired small business owner, and conservative Republican activist. She was born and raised in the once Golden State of California, now a land of despair and disrepair for all but elite Leftist Democrats and their cronies.
