California Secretary of State Shirley Nash Weber emphasized the importance of voting during an interview with CBS News Los Angeles on Sunday, with just days until the highly anticipated Election Day.
Some contentious and close races will finally come to an end after millions of voters in the United States went to the polls, but Weber said it’s always interesting to see how many people still decide not to vote when such important issues are raised.
“I work with a lot of young people and adults as well. We often talk about the power of voices and helping people understand,” Weber said. “You know, sometimes they say it’s your responsibility – and it is your responsibility – but you also don’t realize what you’re giving up when you give up your voice. When you give up your right to vote, you really give other people power. to make decisions for you.”
She also discussed the many ways people can vote now, including early voting and mail-in ballots. As of Saturday morning, Weber said nearly 7 million voters had already submitted their ballots.
“There are different ways, and we’ve tried in California to make it very easy for people to vote, very convenient,” she said.
Weber noted that every registered voter will receive a mail-in ballot “that is tailored to you, your community, who you are, who you are voting for.”
Voters will then have the choice of placing the ballot in a drop box, returning it by mail, hand-delivering it to a voting center or simply filling out a separate ballot entirely in person at one of the state’s hundreds of polling places.
“We also don’t have that one-and-done experience like some states, where you have one day to vote and that’s it,” she said. “We’re giving you 11 days to vote. … Weekend voting has been going on for eight days now in the Los Angeles area.”
Weber also discussed the apparent heightened sense of “voter anxiety” that many people across the country have been discussing regarding in-person voting and the legitimacy behind the voting process.
She said California has been the target of dozens of voter fraud lawsuits, but “ultimately we went to court on every case and we haven’t lost a single case.”
“It has been proven that there is no major fraud in the United States when it comes to voting in the region,” she said, noting that voting machines do not connect to the internet, so fraud in that form is also not possible . “Every machine used in California is tested several times before you can even use it.”
Weber says each ballot has an individual code and all can be tracked from the beginning to the end of the voting process, ending when the vote is officially counted.
“We also verify every signature on the ballots that are returned. We have to look at every signature to make sure it’s your ballot and it’s your signature,” she said.
Voters are also invited to observe the vote counting process at the local polling place, she said. Although visitors are not allowed to enter the same rooms as the polling stations, they can watch through windows or cameras that are sometimes placed over their shoulders.
“You can actually see and observe the process, and a lot of people go in and want to observe it, thinking that something is going to happen that is so unusual,” she said. “A lot of them leave after a while because they said it was too boring.”
Weber said that in the event that there is an error on the ballot, whether it be a missed or incorrect signature, no date or any number of issues, voting officials will contact that person to get to the bottom of the matter to find out.
“We track them down, we really do… There are very few ballots that aren’t actually counted,” she said. “We take it very seriously in California.”
