From the Desk of the Registrar of Voters

Happy Spring, Nevada County! I’m so glad that we’re finally starting to see more sun than rain–hopefully longer days mean time to work in the garden or relax after a hard day.

You might think that the Elections team has plenty of time to work in the yard, but I assure you we’re hard at work on the November General! There’s so much planning that goes into every election. We are busy verifying our voting locations, maintaining registration, and gathering all the paperwork needed to ensure that the upcoming election goes smoothly.

One big part of our operation involves envelopes. Not only are all ballots mailed to every registered voter, most ballots that are cast in California go in an envelope. The information that is on the envelope is highly regulated and vital for our office to determine voter eligibility. I hope that you enjoy learning more about this very important part of the elections and voting process.

Natalie Adona

Nevada County Clerk-Recorder/Registrar of Voters

The return envelope has several parts to it, all of which are important for both our office and our partners at the US Postal Service. The envelope shown here is the domestic vote by mail return envelope for the upcoming November election; the return envelope for our military and overseas voters looks slightly different but it will contain the same basic information. 

On the front, that election mail logo is prominent and it, along with the red strip you see in the upper left corner, helps the Post Office quickly identify a ballot and prioritize its delivery to the appropriate elections office. Other included language lets the Post Office know that this is a voted ballot being sent as Business Reply Mail and does not require postage.

On the back, there’s space for us to print your name, address, your precinct information, and two identifiers. The first helps us distinguish you from other voters who might share your name (Voter ID) and the second indicates the ballot that we issued to you (VBM ID), just in case we need to send you another. 

In presidential primary elections, party identification is also included to ensure that you voted the party ballot that you were entitled to receive. Unlike other types of elections, presidential primaries are Party Nominated Contests–meaning, the parties choose their presidential nominee and only invite registered party members to help select the presidential nominee (with the exception of No Party Preference voters who choose a crossover–that was a topic from our Issue 2 Bulletin, remember?). Including the party identification not only serves as a quality assurance check, but also allows our office to prevent any possible attempts of voter fraud (which would be very hard to do under our laws and procedures, but we keep an eye out anyway!). For those of you who might be thinking that this type of information is printed on all envelopes for every election–rest assured! We only do it in presidential primaries, pursuant to Elections Code section 3011.

Other parts of the envelope include a space for you to sign and date the envelope, apply a mark if you’re unable to apply a signature for any reason, and a space to indicate that you authorized someone else to deliver your ballot.

You might notice some circles marking where holes will be punched out. Those holes serve two purposes. The hole at the bottom is a quality assurance measure that allows our office to quickly see that a ballot is no longer in the envelope–if we verify that you’re able to vote, we certainly don’t want to forget to count it! The holes on the flap on either side of the voter signature area allow voters with sight impairments to find where they should sign.

Conditional voter registration: In California, voters are able to register and vote on the same day if they missed the regular registration deadline. There are two kinds of conditional voter registration: instant and provisional. In Nevada County, we offer a provisional conditional voter registration. That means that we'll allow you to vote a ballot now but we'll have to process it for counting later.

The conditional voter registration envelope serves as an affidavit of registration. At minimum, we need the voter’s name, residential address (ahem–you can’t live in a PO Box!), state issued ID number (e.g., drivers license) or last four digits of the social security number, and a signature. We’ll apply an affidavit number to the envelope and will have the voter place their voted ballot inside it for verification and counting during the elections canvass.

Provisional: In rare cases, a voter may have to cast a ballot provisionally. Provisional voting is a stop gap measure that ensures that the right to vote is preserved while a challenge to the voter’s eligibility is adjudicated. There are four main reasons why a voter would be asked to vote provisionally: 

1. Our records show that the voter already voted and the voter insists that our records are wrong
2. The voter does not live in the county and has chosen not to be redirected to the correct county
3. The precinct board cannot access the voter file (due to a power outage or some other reason)
4. A court has ordered that the polls stay open past 8 pm on Election Day

The provisional doesn’t serve as a registration form in Nevada County. However, we still need all the basic identifying information to locate the voter’s file in our system and compare the signature that the voter provides. If we can verify the voter’s eligibility and see that they haven’t already voted here or elsewhere, then we’re happy to count the provisional ballot.

Did You Know?

Most Californians that cast a ballot in an election will choose to vote by mail. Since the state started offering no excuse absentee in 2002, more and more of California’s voters chose to get their ballot delivered to their home. In 2022, the state legislature made it official and now all counties must mail a ballot to every active, registered voter in their jurisdiction.

In the March 5, 2024 primary, almost 89 percent of Californians cast their ballot by mail. This chart shows how many accepted vote by mail ballots there were by county (we highlighted Nevada County, just in case you were curious). Of course, that doesn't mean that you can't vote in person--you absolutely can!