Excerpt:

Christine Pelosi is one of many Bay Area volunteers who have headed to the Central Valley to “cure” ballots in an incredibly tight House race. On Wednesday afternoon, after a few days of volunteering in the Merced area, she was “staking out” a Modesto home with a colleague, hoping to connect with a voter whose ballot was rejected over a signature problem, she told the Chronicle.

Pelosi, the daughter of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and a longtime California Democratic Party leader who is widely thought to be eyeing her mother’s seat when she retires, posted about her effort, including a video of her singing “On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson, though with a ballot curing lyrical twist. 

She is part of a broader effort by both campaigns in the House race to fix problems with voters’ ballots that will allow them to be counted before the Dec. 3, deadline.

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Voters can also quickly check to see if their ballot was counted and accepted or faces an issue through ballot tracking on the California Secretary of State’s website at https://wheresmyballot.sos.ca.gov.

John Arntz, director of the San Francisco Department of Elections, said that ballot curing involves voters completing a form that verifies their signature that can be returned by mail, email or in person to have their vote counted.

Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, a nonpartisan voting organization, estimates that across California, only about 50% of ballots that can be remedied are cured.

Alexander said that signature problems can affect first-time and younger voters who have not yet developed a regular signature or are unaware that the signature on their ballots will be compared to the signature on file with the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Older voters are also impacted more often by signature problems as their dexterity and handwriting changes with age, making it more difficult to match their previous signatures.

It can also be surprising whose ballots need to be cured. Pelosi said she helped to cure the ballot of a candidate for office whose signatures didn’t match. After finding the Riverside County candidate, who Pelosi declined to identify, she was able to cure her ballot and ensure that her vote — for herself — was counted.

This election, thanks to a law passed in September, counties are not able to certify votes until 28 days after Election Day, allowing voters nearly a month to fix their ballots. The law, which only applies to this fall’s election, is aimed at allowing a longer period of time for volunteers to reach voters who need to verify their signatures or otherwise cure their ballots. (Full Story)