Final Count Still Pending in Monrovia Municipal Election Monrovia’s City Manager Outlines the Ongoing Vote Count

BY Susan Motander
The final count of votes in the Monrovia City Election has not yet been done. The final absentee ballots, those received on or after April 13 have not yet been counted nor have the provisional ballots. The valid ballots will be counted today, Thursday, April 23. The verification procedure will begin at 8:00 am with the final results expected by noon
As a result of a remark made on air by a KGEM personality, there has been some confusion regarding the procedure of counting provisional ballots. At that time, Lance Mungia, KGEM’s executive director erroneously stated that the provisional ballots would only be counted if the outcome of the election was close. This is not the case. All valid ballots are counted.
The verification process includes validating the signatures on the Vote by Mail (normally called Absentee or VBM Ballots. Those who bring their unopened VBM ballots to their polling place are supposed to be given a regular ballot when they turn in their Mail-in Ballot. One voter reported she had to insist upon receiving a regular ballot rather than a provision ballot.
Provision Ballots are given to those who want to vote at a polling location other than their own. Election officials must insure that the person had not voted at their assigned polling place to verify the person was not attempting to “double vote.”
In any case, all valid ballots are counted regardless of the election results.
As a result of this confusion, City Manager Oliver Chi addressed the election process in his weekly City Manager’s Update. The following are excerpts from that report:
“As you may be aware, the results from our most recent municipal election held this past Tuesday are still preliminary. At this point in time, it appears that we have somewhere between 800 – 900 additional ballots that must be counted before the election results can be finalized. Our fantastic City Clerk, Alice Atkins, is currently working to properly verify each of the remaining vote by mail (VBM) and provisional ballots, and we will be ready to finalize the processing and counting of the remaining ballots next Thursday, April 23, 2015.
“The processing and counting of the remaining ballots will be coordinated in the Police Department Community Room, and the facility will be open to the public to allow for individuals to observe this important process. Furthermore, staff has coordinated with KGEM, who will be filming and broadcasting the entire process. The overall procedures will begin next Thursday, April 23, 2015, at 8:00 a.m., when we will start processing all of the remaining ballots. That activity will take a few hours, after which point in time, we will begin the counting process. Based on our current schedule, we anticipate that the ballots will be counted starting at 11:00 a.m., and we should have the final election results ready for review no later than 12:00 p.m.
“The law allows the Election Official to begin processing Vote by Mail (VBM) ballots many days before the election. As we did in 2013, [the City Clerk] convened our VBM processing board on Monday to open envelopes and prepare the ballots to be counted as soon as polls closed on election day. This process occurs after all signatures have been verified, and includes ensuring the stub has been torn off, that the ballot hasn’t been bent or creased, and that the ballot is marked in a way that can be accurately read by the ballot counter. Where the voter intention is clear but the ballot may be marked in a way the counter may not pick up, a blue highlighter is used so that the original marking is not obscured. Where a ballot is bent, torn, or smudged to a point that there is risk the ballot counter will pick up unintended overvotes, there is a duplication process where a new ballot is marked and serialized to correspond with the original ballot – the damaged or smudged ballot is put in an envelope and the duplicate ballot is counted with the other ballots. Once those ballots are processed, they are sealed in boxes (by precinct) and secured in my vault until counting. You can imagine it’s time a consuming process (for 1,730 [VBM] ballots this year) and we have to cut off the mail at some point.
“On Monday and Tuesday we received a larger than normal volume of mail, as well a those ballots dropped off at City Hall in person, which totaled 326 by 6pm yesterday, with a few additional turned in before 8pm. In addition, 255 VBMs were dropped off at the polls, along with 122 provisional ballots (for those who voted at the wrong precinct, didn’t surrender a mail ballot, or for some other reason weren’t on the roster). So as of [Tuesday] night at10:15 p.m., we had approximately 701 ballots still to be verified, processed and counted. In the last election, this number was around 270.
“In addition to this, the new law requires that VBMs received up to 3 days after the election must also be counted, so long as they are postmarked on or before election day. In today’s mail I estimate we received between 125-150 ballots, with 2 days yet to go. It’s hard to anticipate how many will be received by Friday. I attribute some of this last-minute volume to the fact that our mail is sorted in Santa Clarita and often takes 2 or more days to reach me.
“There is still the signature verification process for the VBMs, as well as verification of the provisional ballots (to ensure they are registered properly and that they didn’t vote at more than one precinct and by mail, etc.) The provisional verification process is a bit more time consuming than the VBM signature verification. Traditionally, we have a fairly low rate of challenged ballots.
“I hope this overview is helpful in explaining details related to our election process, of course, please feel free to let me know if you have any questions regarding this matter.”

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