One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
LA County Primary Results Are All But In … Except For Ballots That Need To Be ‘Cured’
An official ballot envelope for the 2024 primary election in Los Angeles.
(
Brianna Lee
/
LAist
)
It’s been two weeks since the primary election, and a large majority of the votes have been counted.
But it doesn’t mean the end just yet. As our colleagues noted, the pace of the vote count has now entered a much slower, final stretch because many of the remaining ballots require extra effort to verify.
One of those extra efforts is called “curing.”
What is curing? Does it relate to ham?
No it does not. And yes, bad joke, but we hope you chuckled.
The Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters is in the process of verifying thousands of vote-by-mail ballot signatures that didn’t match signatures on file, a process called curing that will last until the end of the month. A registrar spokesperson said there were an estimated 4,000 ballots to be cured as of March 14.
When vote-by-mail ballots arrive at the registrar’s office, they are processed through an automatic signature recognition device. If there is no signature on the outside envelope or the signature doesn’t match the one on record for that voter, the ballot is pulled for human review, according to Michael Sanchez, senior information specialist at the registrar’s office.
Sponsored message
“By state law, we are required to compare the signatures on the return envelopes to those signatures on that voter registration record,” Sanchez told LAist.
If registrar officials determine that the signatures still don’t match, or there is none, they notify the voter by mail. If they have an email and phone record, they reach out that way, too.
“The corrective action is for that voter to fill out and sign the notice that was mailed to them and return it to our office,” Sanchez said.
The deadline for the voter to return the notice is March 27.
“I think the process of..asking that voter to act one more time in returning that notice is what can be the more challenging component here,” Sanchez said.
The registrar has counted more than 1.6 million votes. That’s nearly 29% of registered voters.
Sponsored message
As of March 14th, it had another estimated 8,200 to count.
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
