🚨The Pickleballers Pull Ahead🚨
Fewer than 4,000 Ventura County ballots are still out there. Why is this taking so long? (I'll explain)
The pickleballers have increased their lead to 23 votes!
As of Nov. 26th, the campaign to reopen four pickleball courts at Ojai City Hall has earned 2,125 votes. The opposition campaign has 2,102. I’ll also note that the latest results indicate the Measure O fight received 20 more votes than the mayoral race. That means 20 Ojaians elected to cast a vote about pickleball, but not the mayor.
Karin Quimby, one of the leaders of the No On O campaign, acknowledged that she is “disappointed in how the vote is looking now,” but “it’s not over until the final vote is counted.”
Indeed. And according to the Ventura County Clerk’s Office, just 167 unprocessed ballots remain. Another 3,598 ballots are awaiting “curing.”
Let me explain: a ballot in need of “curing” is a mail-in ballot with a signature issue. Either a) the signature on the outside of the envelope doesn’t match the signature on that voter’s drivers license or, b) the voter forgot to sign the envelope altogether. The Clerk’s office reaches out to voters with uncured ballots by mail. You can check to see if your ballot is in need of curing and/or confirm that your vote was counted with the California’s Ballottrax Dashboard. The ballot curing deadline is Dec. 2nd at 5 p.m., according to the Clerk’s office.
Many have asked: why is this taking so long? The short answer is: because of mail-in ballots.
Here’s an in-depth explanation from Simone Seydoux, a Public Information Officer in the Clerk’s Office:
“Basically, the reason the vote [count] takes so long is 1) California law is based around ensuring every legal vote is counted and that every vote is legal, [and] 2) because 90% of voters prefer to vote in person and 50% of them drop off or mail their ballots the Monday before and on Election Day.
“All those vote by mails need to be signature verified twice - once by machine and then re-verified manually. Since there are thousands of ballots (Ventura County’s population is larger than three different states) that takes a while.
“Additionally, we accept all ballots postmarked before or on Election Day up to seven days from the election. We also are processing conditional voter registration ballots to ensure we received any necessary voter ID and that it is valid (the first time you are registered to vote, you do need to provide voter ID but not after that). We investigate address changes, etc. We also investigate provisional ballots after processing the vote by mails - voters that were unable to vote a regular ballot in person and to verify all those are legitimate - no two time votes.
“We also conduct an audit at the same time to ensure the tabulation is correct and that is called the One Percent Manual Tally Audit which again is thousands of ballots.
“In addition to that, there is the challenged signature ballots where the voter either neglected to sign their ballot or the signature verification did not bring a match. These voters are given time to “cure” their signature to prove that they are the registered voter.
“Those are most of the main reasons. We know every vote is valuable and we work to ensure every legitimate vote will be counted.”
Thank you Simone! (And thank you to all of our elections workers!)
This process is coming to a close. The Clerk’s Office will issue a final vote count update on December 3rd at 4 p.m. The next day, Dec. 4th, the election will be certified.
However, due to the closeness of the Measure O race, Ojai may well be in for a recount. Sensing this (I imagine), Ventura County Clerk-Recorder & Registrar of Voters Michelle Ascencion published a new blog post explaining the recount process. Here are the important details: recounts are not automatic, and they are expensive. A recount must be requested and funded by the public.
Ascencion wraps up by stating that recounts are rare, though one was funded in 2022...
… And yep, that was Ojai too. The famous Betsy Stix v. Anson Williams mayoral race recount. The results did not change.
The cost of the 2022 recount was estimated at $28,500.
I’ll keep you posted…