The shuffling of ballots making its way through one of the four tabulator machines at the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder's Office is a sound employees are used to.
Ahead of the November 4 Special Election, the Clerk-Recorder's Office performed a Logic and Accuracy test as required by election code. On Thursday, they ran more than 4,000 test ballots through their ballot-counting machines.
During general election years, like in 2024, they had to test over 80,000 ballots.
“It's a big difference. The processes are still the same. It's just the quantity," Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano explained.
The public was invited to sit in on the process.
In 2022, Darcia Stebbens requested recounts in two separate county supervisor races. She was among the community members at the elections office on Thursday, eager to watch the testing and make sure that what is being tabulated is correct.
“Being able to observe the process of counting the ballots and seeing what the ballot looks like, that the formatting is correct and able to be read correctly by the tabulators," Stebbens said.
Those in attendance were also able to ask questions about the tabulation as well as the voting process.
“Yes, those were addressed, the questions are, and usually it's around how many precincts, where are the precincts,” Stebbens said of the questions she had about the process.
The ballots go through each of the four machines to make sure the amount tabulated matches the amount in the test desk, a way to prove that the number tabulated is truly the correct number.
“I think it's important for the voters to see that our system is doing exactly what we expect it to do before any ballots are counted," Cano said. "I think that there's a lot of curiosity behind it. 'How do you know?' We get that all the time."
The test is one of two audits conducted by the Clerk-Recorder's Office. After the election, there is a manual tally of 1% of the mail-in ballots and precinct ballots.
“It is the reverse testing or audit of the system from what we did today," Cano explained of the secondary test.
Ballots will be mailed out on Friday. If you haven’t received your ballot by next Friday, Cano says to call the Clerk-Recorder's Office.
