San Luis Obispo County using Dominion Scanners to Process Ballots
Poll workers have been processing returned ballots for about two weeks now, and say they are impressed by the early turnout.
"I voted. If you get in here and get in, get out real quick and just do it," say SLO County residents Lee and Melanie Richardson.
Local voters are eagerly awaiting Tuesday's election night results. The process of voting to certification is massive. San Luis Obispo county has been using Dominion scanning machines since 2017.
"We have three different scanners, if you will. We have two of the ICC’s that are much smaller version. And then we have our big high pro which is a high speed scanner that we just acquired this year," says Elaina Cano, SLO Clerk Recorder.
Dominion won an 800 million dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which falsely claimed the machines were rigged.
"I have a feeling that folks understand what the Dominion system is after the last four years of hearing about it in the news," says Cano.
Dominion also received criticism from community members at a recent supervisors meeting. But those claims are unfounded.
Cano continues, "Certainly demystifying the concerns that some people had knowing that there has been no valid proof, as far as being able to hook up to the Internet or flipping the votes."
There are several stages of verification ballots must pass through before they are scanned.
Cano summarizes the process: "When somebody returns their vote by mail ballot, we scan it through these scanners, which captures signatures. It then goes through signature verification, then it goes through processing to tabulation to results."
The SLO county elections office says early ballot returns are flooding in and even exceeding previous cycles.
"Voters have done a great job in returning their ballots to us," Cano says.
"Vote early, but hopes that they're not cheating, processed properly. definitely vote early," say the Richardsons.
After tabulation, the ballots are securely locked while they await post-election processing.
"We have multiple safeguards, chain of custody through each step," concludes Cano.
