On Midterm Election Day, Experts Tackle Election Myths

By Suzanne Potter,
Public News Service,
November 8, 2022

Excerpts:

Millions of Californians have already voted but millions more will head to the polls today - to either vote in person or drop off their mail-in ballot. Groups that fight for clean elections want to clear up some myths about the ballot this year.

Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said some people worry, mistakenly thinking they have to vote on every race.

"This is a pretty long ballot," Alexander said. "And if you don't feel comfortable making a decision on something on the ballot, you're free to skip that contest and move on to the next ballot."

As a reminder, voters must sign the ballot envelope for it to be counted. If you want to mail it, it must be postmarked today and received within seven days. County election officials will contact voters with missing or challenged envelope signatures to give them a chance to submit a valid signature.

Alexander notes that people should not expect full results by tonight.

"It's likely that there will be contests where you're looking at the results on election night, and it may look like it's going one way," Alexander said. "And then once all the ballots get counted, it turns out going in the other direction. And that is to be expected, because what shows on election night is just a small portion of all the ballots that will be counted."

She added that during the June primary, more than 91% of votes were cast by mail, and just under half were counted within two days after election day. As of 10:40 p-m on election night five months ago, only 41% of the votes had been counted.  (Full Story)