After 1.9 million ballots were sent out to Orange County’s registered voters this week, an extensive safety process is in place to ensure security.
In Orange County, Registrar of Voters Bob Page says election security is built into the process through layers of physical safety guards, technology, ballot tracking, voter registration maintenance, testing and audits.
“We work very hard to make sure every election is secure and accurate,” Page said in an interview detailing how elections work in OC.
Editors’ Note: This dispatch is part of the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service, working with student journalists to cover public policy issues across Orange County. If you would like to submit your own student media project related to Orange County civics or if you have any response to this work, contact admin@voiceofoc.org.
The Orange County Registrar of Voters says it completes more than 125 safety steps intended to protect the security and accuracy of elections.
For voters, those safeguards start long before a ballot is cast.
Orange County uses paper ballots for voting, while its vote-tallying system is kept offline from the internet.
The county also conducts testing before and after elections to verify the accuracy of ballot systems and the voting system software. At least 1% of randomly selected precincts undergo hand counts as an additional check on the electronic tally.
“After every election, the voting system software is removed from every piece of equipment,” Page said.
“When we get ready to start preparing for a new election, we have to take the original copy of the software that was hand-delivered to us under chain-of-custody procedures by the Secretary of State.”
The original version of the certified software is sometimes referred to as “the golden image.”
Election officials then compare a software hash code with the known original to check that the software has not been altered. The equipment is then tested to ensure it functions and counts ballots correctly.
Observers also have opportunities to watch election procedures.
Some activities are livestreamed, although activities involving voter signatures are not shown publicly to protect personal voter information.
For many Orange County voters, election security is most visible through the vote-by-mail process.
Every registered Orange County voter receives a vote-by-mail ballot, although voters can also vote in person at the multitude of vote centers.
Returned ballots are collected by background-checked, two-person teams using tracking and chain-of-custody procedures. Once ballots reach the Registrar of Voters, the returned envelopes are scanned and signatures are compared with the voter-registration record.
If a signature does not match, the voter is notified and given an opportunity to resolve the discrepancy.
After a ballot is verified, it is separated from its envelope and prepped for counting.
The ballots are then reviewed and scanned before being included in the tally.
County leaders said the final tally is conducted on an air-gapped system in a secure room with limited physical access.
The process also provides multiple opportunities to check the results. Testing and audits are conducted before the certification.
Security is not limited to computer systems.
Those procedures are intended to establish who has responsibility for ballots as they move from one location to another.
The county also uses law enforcement and security personnel during elections, along with trained election employees and a command center designed to respond to problems at vote centers.
Another part of election integrity is maintaining an accurate list of registered voters.
The Orange County Registrar of Voters says voter registration records are updated regularly using information provided by voters and official government sources. The county also uses additional data to identify potential address or status changes for election officials to research.
The county’s voter list maintenance procedures include reviewing potential duplicate records, address information, records involving deceased people, and registrations affected by returned mail or address changes.
Voters who become inactive are not automatically mailed a ballot and must confirm or update their registration to reactivate it. A voter registration being canceled does not, by itself, mean the registration was fraudulent, Page said.
Registration records can become inactive because a voter moves, receives election mail at an old address or otherwise no longer meets the requirements for an active registration.
The 2026 election includes Proposition 39, a proposed constitutional amendment concerning voter identification and citizenship verification.
Under the measure, voters would face additional identification requirements when casting their vote.
In-person voters would be required to present government-issued identification.
Vote-by-mail voters would provide the last four digits of a designated government-issued identification number on their ballot envelope, with election officials verifying that information against registration records.
The measure would also require state and county officials to make best efforts to verify the citizenship of registered voters using government data.
Page, the county’s nonpartisan election chief, said the county will figure out how to implement the requirements if voters approve the proposition.
“If it passes and becomes law, we’ll figure out how to do it,” he said.
He also noted that implementation would require additional direction from the state, as the measure leaves certain operational details to future legislation and administrative decisions.
That means the practical effect on county election operations would depend in part on decisions made after passage.
Page said one question would be whether the new identification requirements would replace existing signature verification for vote-by-mail ballots or be used in addition to it.
If both systems were required, he said, the process could take additional time and involve additional steps.
For voters, the safeguards surrounding voting can seem relatively simple.
Receive a ballot, mark it, sign the envelope and return it, or vote at a vote center.
Behind those actions is a longer process involving registration checks, ballot accounting, signature verification, chain-of-custody procedures, equipment testing, software verification and post-election auditing.
For Page, that work is about more than equipment and procedures.
“It’s a connection to democracy.”
The Collegiate News Service is a partnership between Voice of OC and local student journalists. Contact this story’s reporter by emailing avega@chapman.edu
