With eight days left until Election Day, the country has recorded more mail-in and early votes than it did for the entire 2016 election.
With that in mind, Santa Clara County is taking steps to make sure everyone knows what is being done to make sure their ballot is safe and gets counted.
So far, more than a million people in the county have registered to vote and a record number of them have already turned in their ballots.
People are even more focused on making sure their ballot gets to the right place to guarantee that some even drove directly to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters Office Monday to hand deliver them.
So far, a whopping 38% of the county’s registered voters have cast ballots.
“As of yesterday we have received 388,000 ballots; that’s more than we’ve ever had at this time ever before in the history of Santa Clara County,” said Shannon Bushey from the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters.
With such a high turnout even before Election Day, security is more important than ever.
Which is why the county is making sure everyone understands what’s being done to secure the vote.
That begins with making everyone know the rules. Anyone wearing campaign or candidate clothing or holding signs must be at least 100 feet away from all voting centers, and that’s not the only restriction.
“No one is allowed to intimidate you while you’re voting either at the drop off box or a voting center and no one is allowed to be uniformed or armed in the vicinity of a vote center,” said Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney James Gibbons-Shapiro said.
While you may not see security personnel at voting centers, they aren’t very far away.
“We have a hotline that staff can call if they feel threatened and depending on the situation they can call 911 if needed,” Bushey said.
And the safeguards don’t end on Election Day.
“We do manual recount and audits after the election,” Bushey said.
The county has 30 days after the election to certify the final result.
Source: NBC Bay Area
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