Voters in Assembly District 63 have just one more week to cast their ballots in a special general election to fill the seat vacated by Bill Essayli, who was appointed interim U.S. Attorney for Southern California in April.
The June 24 primary whittled down the field from four candidates to two, Republican Natasha Johnson and Democrat Chris Shoults. The two will face off August 26 in the special general election. The winner of the race will fill the seat for the remainder of the term that ends next year.
Johnson previously told The Record the biggest issues facing residents in the district were California’s high cost of living, public safety, homelessness, the impact of regulations on small businesses, parental rights and education.
Shoults told The Record that the biggest issues facing district residents were affordability and the need for economic diversification and investment in education, both of which he said were tied to cost of living issues in the state.
Read more about the candidates here.
Casting your ballot
Assembly District 63 voters have multiple options for casting their ballot in the August 26 special general election.
All eligible registered voters who received a mail-in ballot can simply fill out the ballot and drop it at any secure ballot drop-off location or mail it back to the Registrar of Voters (ROV) through the United States Postal Service. There’s no postage required, though voters need to ensure they sign the outer envelope before dropping it off or mailing it out.
Those who prefer to drop off their ballots must do so by 8 p.m. on Election Day in order for them to be counted. Mailed ballots must be postmarked no later than August 26 and must arrive at the ROV’s office no later than September 2 in order to be counted.
For those who prefer to cast their ballot in person, there are currently seven open vote centers, including the ROV’s office. Six additional vote center locations will open this coming Saturday. All vote centers will be open on Election Day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. If there is a line at a vote center on Election Day, voters in line by 8 p.m. are eligible to vote.
Elizabeth Florer, public information officer for the ROV, said in an email to The Record that the department had hired 98 election officers and 28 leads to work within the vote centers for this election.
Voters who choose to vote in person can do so using a paper ballot that they will fill out and return or a voting machine, known as an accessible voting unit, which will print out a paper ballot for the voter to return.
A full list of drop-off locations and vote centers, along with their hours, can be found here.
Stay up to date with the latest from The Record. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter today!
What comes next
After mail-in ballots are returned to the ROV’s office, the outer envelopes are inspected, validated and sorted. This process ensures that voters signed their ballots and that their signatures match. If a ballot is returned unsigned or the signature cannot be verified, the voter will receive a letter from the ROV asking them to cure their ballot.
Once the outer envelope has been validated, the ballot is separated from the envelope. The ROV then stores the envelopes while the ballots continue to move through the counting process.
Take a deeper dive into the process here.
Ballots are then inspected for any damage or extraneous marks that would prevent them from being scanned. Those that are able are then set for scanning while the selections from damaged ballots will be duplicated onto new ballots by election workers for scanning.
Ballots received prior to the election are scanned and saved on a local network server, which is not connected to the internet, until after the polls close on Election Day when they will be counted. Ballots received on Election Day will be scanned and counted as election workers are able.
Voters can observe the process in person at the ROV’s office during regular office hours and via livestream on the ROV’s website during processing hours.
Final results
The first set of election returns will likely be posted shortly after the polls close next Tuesday, but the final results won’t be certified until late September.
In the June primary, the ROV posted updated results approximately every hour until 11 p.m. on Election Day and then switched to daily updates for the following week. The final certified election results were posted nine days after the election, as required by the California Secretary of State.
For the August 26 election, the ROV has until September 25 to certify the results, according to the California Secretary of State’s special election calendar.
The Riverside Record is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet providing Riverside County with high-quality journalism free of charge. We’re able to do this because of the generous donations of supporters like you!