Contact: Mark Church, Chief Elections Officer & Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder
Alternate: David Tom, Elections Division Manager
(Redwood City, CA) At 8:30 a.m. on June 27, 2016, the San Mateo County Registration & Elections Division will begin the One Percent Manual Tally for the June 7, 2016 Presidential Primary Election. The legally required manual tally is a key procedure in the canvass of an election and takes place during the Official Canvass of the Vote. The Official Canvass begins once the polls have closed on Election Day and must be finished within 30 days following an election.
"The manual tally is one of the final steps in the accountability of an election. The purpose of the manual tally is to verify the accuracy of the electronic count and provide confirmation that the conduct of the election was proper," said San Mateo County Chief Elections Officer & Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder Mark Church. "Most importantly, the manual tally is the part of the election process that helps instill voter confidence."
The public manual tally of the ballots cast in one percent of the precincts will include Vote by Mail ballots, paper ballots cast at the polls and votes cast on the eSlate voting machine. With 468 precincts in the June 7 Primary, there will be five precincts selected by using a random process that involves throwing three ten-sided dice where the resulting three numbers are matched to a corresponding precinct number. For any contest not included in the initial group of precincts, one additional precinct will be randomly selected for the purpose of tallying the votes for that contest.
The One Percent Manual Tally, including the rolling of the dice, is a completely transparent process that the public is welcome to observe. Past observers have rolled the dice to help select the precincts.
To conduct the One Percent Manual Tally, election officials will work in teams of four, called precinct boards, to manually read, call out, record, and tally votes.
Official election results will not be certified until the canvass is completed and the votes of each of the contests on the ballot are upheld by the validations from the One Percent Manual Tally. This process will take approximately four days to complete, after which the Chief Elections Officer will certify and publish the official results no later than July 7, 2016. The official certified results, known as the Statement of the Vote, will be published on the Registration & Elections Division website, www.shapethefuture.org.
The One Percent Manual Tally will be held at the Registration & Elections Division at 40 Tower Road in San Mateo. Please call 650.312.5222 if you wish to observe or be a part of the process in selecting precincts or arrive by 8:30 a.m. on June 27.
The press release is displayed in its original format. San Mateo County Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder & Elections website now resides at www.smcacre.org