Voting machines that San Joaquin County residents will use to participate in California’s high-stakes November redistricting election are working exactly as they should, election officials confirmed through an exhaustive test Monday.
“Everything is double checked, triple checked … to ensure that we have free and fair elections,” San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters Olivia Hale said.
Under California law, counties must test that their voting systems accurately record each vote before every election.
Monday’s test was in preparation for an especially closely-watched race: Proposition 50, which, if passed, would redraw California’s Congressional districts to give Democrats a potential advantage in the 2026 midterm elections for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed Proposition 50 after President Donald Trump pressured the Texas Republicans in July to redraw the state’s Congressional districts, out of fear voters could interrupt his agenda by handing Democratic candidates control of the House next year. The new boundaries handed Republicans an edge in flipping up to five Democratic seats.
In California, a nonpartisan citizen commission usually draws voting districts. If Proposition 50 passes, power to draw the maps would return to the citizen commission in 2030.
The proposition is the only issue on the Nov. 4 special election ballot.
On Monday, San Joaquin County election officials performed the accuracy test using nearly 2,000 test ballots containing the Proposition 50 question. The test ballots can never be used in a real election, because California’s Secretary of State uses multiple methods to keep close track of them, Hale said.
Monday’s trial tested two main stages of ballot processing: scanning ballots into a secure computer system and counting or “tabulating” the results. The test was open for members of the public to view, though none showed up.
Starting at 8 a.m., officials fed test ballots into scanners at the Registrar of Voters’ headquarters in the County Administration Building in downtown Stockton. This is where most ballots, including many vote-by-mail ballots, are counted during a real election, officials said.
After reading the ballots, the scanners transferred an image of each ballot to the county’s secure voting software, which then produced a report showing that every ballot was correctly entered.
Next, officials used an encrypted USB-like device to transfer all the ballot information from the secure software to a separate computer dedicated solely to tabulating results.
That computer is “air gapped,” meaning it is completely physically isolated from other networks, protecting it from hackers, viruses and other digital tampering, officials said. When officials pressed a button, that computer tabulated the test ballots, returning the accurate count officials were hoping for.
Later on Monday, election workers carried out a similar test on every scanner they plan to station at polling locations Nov. 4. After the scanning stage, the computer dedicated to tabulating votes again returned a “perfect” result on the test, Hale said.
“We do pride ourselves on the fact that we’ve made this very smooth in the past few years,” she said.
Hale encouraged San Joaquin County residents — especially those looking to understand the rigors of election integrity systems — to sign up to work the next election alongside county staff.
“We recruit from the community,” Olivia said. “The door is open.”
Confused about California’s upcoming special election? Checkout this voter guide from CalMatters!
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