Continued patience is required for voters to accept the fact that it could be several weeks before Shasta County election winners and losers are known for sure.
This, and other information, was shared Friday afternoon by Tom Toller, Shasta County Clerk and Registrar of Voters, during his elections results briefing at the downtown Redding elections department.
Toller also said that while he originally planned to release daily (weekday) updates, his department’s dissemination of elections results isn’t growing significantly enough to provide enough meaningful data to warrant daily updates. Therefore, going forward, Toller said he will only release updates twice a week; Tuesdays and Fridays, usually before 5 p.m.
Tonight’s results were published around 4:31 p.m.
He said the “bottleneck” that’s slowing down the process continues to be the duplication process implemented to deal with about a 50-percent ballot scanning failure rate.
Toller said that he and his staff are currently working through the vote-by-mail ballots, and that his office has a good “flow” and things are operating smoothly.
In fact, Toller said operations are going so well at the Shasta County Elections Office that Joanna Francescut, Assistant ROV, was in Nevada County helping its elections department deal with its scanning issues.
The briefing included one reporter’s question regarding Thursday’s Board of Supervisors agenda item R5, sponsored by District 4 Supervisor Patrick Jones. Although that item was pulled from the agenda, several public speakers referred to it, and used it as opportunity to criticize Joanna Francescut, assistant ROV. Many insiders believe that Jones is using this subject that pertains to a grant agreement with Center for Tech and Civic Life as an excuse to fire Francescut.
Toller said it seemed bad timing to address this matter, and that he was particularly bothered by the fact that it was a two-year-old issue. To complete his thoughts on the subject, Toller said he would remove his clerk cap and don his trial lawyer cap to speak further on the subject.
“When the board voted to sign the contract with Hart, and expend the funds for the Hart InterCivic machines, in a way they sort of ratified that grant,” Toller said with a smile.
“So I find it a little troubling that now they’re trying to revisit the issue. But again, it’s before my time, and I have so little — I have no direct knowledge of it — and so little knowledge of it in general that I don’t think I can contribute meaningfully to the discussion. But it sure seems that we have enough to focus on now. That’s where my attention is.”
Click here for the updated elections results
Earlier in the day, Toller released a press release that assured the public his elections department is working quickly to complete the canvas for the 2024 general election.
He said California counties have up to 28 days to complete the official canvass of a federal election, and 30 days for statewide and local elections. He listed the many steps required to accomplish the election canvass:
• Ensuring eligible ballot is counted
• Ensuring that voters only voted once
• Ensuring proper procedures were followed on Election Day
• Ensuring the vote tabulation system is properly counting ballots
The press release reported the estimated count of unprocessed ballots remaining in the elections office. To further complicate matters, the print overspray issue has seen higher rejection rates on the Ballot Card B than the Ballot Card A (the two pages of a ballot). Because of that discrepancy, Toller has included a separate line that estimates the number of Ballot Card Bs that are rejected and awaiting duplication.
Second Estimated Unprocessed Ballot Report
Vote By Mail: 59,446
Provisional: 1736
CVR Provisional: 562
Other – Card A: 3676
(Includes unprocessed Ballot Card A that are
damaged, need to be remade, or require further
review)
*Other – Card B 12734
Challenged Ballots (left to cure): 1302
Total Unprocessed: 66,722
*Other-Card B is not included in the Total Unprocessed Number
Toller addressed some possible confusion pertaining to language on the elections department’s website that states “100% of precincts reporting.”
Toller clarified that “100 percent of precincts reporting” refers specifically to ballots cast at the polling place on Election Day only.
The next election update briefing will be published Tuesday. Check back for ongoing election information.
