Registrars Of Voters For Riverside, Orange Counties Assure No Voter Fraud
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The registrars of voters for Orange and Riverside counties Tuesday assured voters that Donald Trump's recent claims of massive voter fraud taking place has no bearing on their jurisdictions.
"We take voting very seriously, and we protect the ballot," Orange County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley said.
Across the country, elections are "decentralized" and are "fragmented over 3,000 voting jurisdictions," making it difficult for a conspiracy to change the results of the presidential to succeed, Kelley explained.
Each of the systems across the country have various types of voting machines and differing processes, which "limits the possibility for funny business," he added.
The county's voting machines are not online; so there's no way a hacker could flip votes, Kelley pointed out.
Even if a hacker attacked the county's website, it would not affect the vote counting because paper ballots serve as backups, and the votes are not tallied online anyway. Kelley added.
Riverside County Registrar of Voters Rebecca Spencer echoed Kelley's point.
"We're on top of it. The systems we have in place in Riverside County are good," Spencer said. "I am confident in our procedures and staff. We have the necessary checks and balances."
Referring to a CBS2/KCAL9's investigation in May that showed a half-dozen so-called "dead voters" were still on the rolls, Spencer said "when we learn they're deceased, we remove them. We do voter file maintenance on a regular basis."
Spencer said with the majority of votes being cast by mail, there is an ongoing effort to confirm the validity of signatures applied to absentee ballots.
"The first step is handled by our automated signature verification system," Spencer explained. "It compares the signature on the envelope to the signature on the registration card originally filed with our office. If it doesn't get a high enough score, it is staffed out for human review."
Spencer said at least four pairs of eyes scrutinize questionable signatures before a ballot is processed.
In the end, fewer than 1 percent of vote-by-mail ballots are red-flagged for possible fraud, according to the registrar.
