Certification of the Nov. 5 election results for Stanislaus County will be delayed by a new state law, according to Donna Linder, the county registrar of voters.
Assembly Bill 3184 was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 22, amending the California elections code. It intends to clarify the deadline for people trying to “cure,” or correct, their vote-by-mail ballot s because they were returned with no signature or a nonmatching signature.
“Typically, the code says their deadline is two days before we certify, which is kind of up in the air,” Linder said. “So what they’ve done is they’ve created a certification date for all counties throughout the state.”
The certification date for this upcoming general election is now Dec. 3 for all counties in California.
When Marc Berman, the Assembly member who authored the bill, brought it up for a vote, he said that in the last general election in 2022, 60,000 ballots were rejected for missing or incorrect signatures.
“This maximized the time to correct a signature issue and ensure that the vote is counted and provides a date certain so that everyone, every voter, is operating on a level playing field,” Berman said.
Previously, ballots with no issues were fully counted around seven to nine days after an election. The county then would send out ballot cure forms, wait the required eight-day period for the return of the form, and certify once that deadline had passed.
This usually meant the public would see certified election results 17 to 20 days after the election. The new law stretches that to 28 days.
“We’re efficient, but careful,” Linder said. “With this law, we’ll probably continue to stay efficient with our counting but we cannot say we’re certified — which means we’re done counting — until Dec. 3.”
The secretary of state sent notices to all county registrars alerting them that the governor had signed AB 3184 as an “urgency bill” and explained what it meant for this upcoming election. The Legislature unanimously approved the bill Aug. 14.
Berman said that at a time of increased partisanship around elections, he is proud that AB 3184, which does not delay counting ballots or providing the public with election result updates, received such strong bipartisan support in the Legislature.
“As a candidate, I appreciate the desire for fast election results as much as anyone. As an American, I think it’s critical that we take our time to make sure every vote that was properly cast is counted, and that our election results are accurate,” Berman wrote in an email to The Bee.
The county posts updated ballot counts to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays following the election. The public probably will not see much change in the count after Nov 25.
“I just need the public to know because a lot of the people in the public don’t understand why it takes us 17 days,” Linder said. “So now, to extend it to 28 days, I’d like them to know that it’s because it’s law, not because we’re not doing our job.”
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