Opening

RETURN TO PROCEDURES

Per Elections Code Section 15101 (b), Any jurisdiction having the necessary computer capability may start to process vote by mail ballots on the 29th day before the election. Processing vote by mail ballots includes opening vote by mail ballot return envelopes, removing ballots, duplicating any damaged ballots, and preparing the ballots to be machine read, or machine reading them, including processing write-in votes so that they can be tallied by the machine, but under no circumstances may a vote count be accessed or released until 8 p.m. on the day of the election. All other jurisdictions shall start to process vote by mail ballots at 5 p.m. on the day before the election.

TRAINING ROLES TYPES OF BINS AND USAGE
  • All ROV employees assigned to work as an Opener are trained.
  • Supervisor conducts training in- person
  • After training, the supervisor meets with trained employees to do an assessment to ensure that the process is understood.
  • Supervisor
  • Lead
  • ROV employees known as Openers
  • Blue – Ballots to be extracted
  • Green – Ballots to be interfiled/scanned
  • Red - Ballots to be researched
  • Postal Bins – Empty Returned Ballot Envelopes

 

BALLOTS DESCRIPTION PROCEDURE
Ready for extraction ROV employees at each table will receive a blue bin of To Be Extracted Vote By Mail (VBM) Ballots.
  1. Place the VBM Ballot envelopes face down to maintain secrecy of voter identification and the voted ballot during extraction.
  2. Extract ballot from envelope
  3. Place the to be scanned/counted ballot into the green bin
  4. Group all the empty envelopes with a rubber band and place into the postal bin
  • Empty envelope, no ballots
  • Out of County ballots
  • Identified ballots
  • Remote Accessible Vote by Mail
  • Ripped/damaged ballots
 Ballots that require further research Stop opening and place that envelope with the ballot into the red bin for further research

RETURN TO PROCEDURES