COVID-19 brings challenges, changes to 2020 election
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – In Lake County or any other community across the country, the 2020 presidential election is unlike any other – whether it’s for voters or the people who are working to run the election process.
Thanks to COVID-19, this year saw a host of changes to casting ballots, with a shift toward voting by mail. For in-person voting, there were new safety protocols – including requirements to wear masks and social distance – while poll workers found themselves also having to regularly sanitize surfaces for the protection of voters.
Lake County News this year participated in the Lake County Registrar of Voters Office’s Election Observer Panel, which included seven community members who visited the 22 polling places in Lake County to watch how the process went on Election Day.
During the afternoon and early evening, a visit to five precincts – from Lucerne to Lakeport – revealed consistent trends, from large numbers of provisional ballots and same-day voter registrations being submitted to a steady stream of voters throughout the day.
Poll workers reported that the new protocols in place for this year’s election caused some frustration for voters – whether it was having to wait in lines or their desire to turn in their ballots in order to vote in person.
In one case, a man was reported to have thrown a pen at a poll worker at the Mormon church in Lakeport. A few frustrated voters were reported to have called the Secretary of State’s Office to complain about the process; the poll staffers said the individuals who made the complaints had been confrontational and confused.
Wanting to vote in person
This year, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, California’s county election offices issued 22,389,846 vote by mail – or absentee – ballots to the state’s registered voters. By Monday, the Secretary of State’s Office said 11,807,069 had been returned, with 98.83 percent of those ballots accepted.
In Lake County, 37,717 vote by mail ballots were issued, and by Monday 16,823 ballots had been returned, with 98.64 percent accepted, the Secretary of State’s Office reported.
At the Community Baptist Church in Nice, polling staffers had one room set aside for people to come in and drop off their ballots, with another room organized with six voting booths for people to actually cast their ballots.
Poll workers, sitting behind plexiglass barries, handed out pens – which voters got to keep – and ballots, explained the process for voting either on paper or with voting machines (which reportedly got more use than in past years), then helped them put the ballots in the appropriate boxes and gave out “I Voted” stickers.
Many vote by mail ballots were surrendered so people could vote in person.
But, in many cases, people came to the polls without having registered to vote or without their issued ballots, according to polling staffers.
In the case of the former, they were allowed for the first time to do “same day” – or conditional – registration and cast their vote.
In the latter, pink provisional ballots were given to voters who hadn’t received ballots, had them and didn’t bring them to the polls or had lost them.
During visits to the polling precincts on Tuesday afternoon, this reporter watched as numerous provisional ballots were handed out to residents who lined up to vote.
Marilyn Pivniska, the precinct inspector for Lucerne, said she’s never seen so many provisional ballots. She said people were upset with having to vote provisionally and that they didn’t understand that they could have avoided provisional voting if they had brought their vote by mail ballots to the polls.
Steady streams of visitors
At North Shore Christian Fellowship on Main Street in Upper Lake, there was a steady stream of voters throughout Election Day, with about a dozen people lined up inside the church during the afternoon.
“It’s been a very busy day,” said Melinda Wright, working as a greeter at the polls.
The greeter is a new position assigned to help control the flow of voters moving through the polls in accordance with social distancing guidelines.
Wright also reported that people were confused about the need to bring their ballots to the polls either to drop them off or surrender them to avoid provisional voting.
Wright said some people were “grumbly” but not confrontational. One man, in frustration, was swearing at the new process for casting ballots.
“Some people can roll with it,” she said. “Others, not so much.”
Turning in vote by mail ballots
At the Mormon Church in Lakeport, Phyllis Navarro, the precinct inspector, and her crew were welcoming many voters who wanted to turn in their ballots, which were stored in a bulging vote by mail ballot bag.
But like the other polls, they reported many people coming in and having to vote provisionally because of not bringing their vote by mail ballots.
It was there that a frustrated man threw a pen at a poll worker, left, came back to show them he had a ballot and then sat in the lobby, where he tried to talk to other voters and ask if they had their ballots. The greeter told him to stop.
The Lakeport poll workers said that the social aspect of voting has been important to people – going to their precinct and seeing their friends and neighbors. That tradition has been disrupted this year.
Local authorities had been vigilant in case of election-related problems. However, Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen said his agency received no reports of issues on Tuesday.
A long day and night at the courthouse
At the Lake County Courthouse in downtown Lakeport, the polling area that could normally be found in the hallway outside the Registrar of Voters Office on the second floor was moved downstairs to the Board of Supervisors chambers on Tuesday.
The chambers, which in pre-COVID times had a maximum occupancy of 144 people, now is limited to 24 people. It has been cleared of its seats and on Tuesday seven voting booths for filling out paper ballots and one for the electronic voting machine were stationed around the room.
Shortly before 5 p.m., the staff there was preparing for a final evening rush of voters getting off of work.
Upstairs, scanning of vote by mail ballots that had been returned early was underway. Overseeing the work was Diane Fridley, the county’s retired registrar, and mentor and predecessor to current Registrar Maria Valadez.
In previous years, the work of counting ballots hasn’t always been completed on Election Night. That’s the expectation again this year due to the many additional checks and balances, and the challenges that will come with having to process thousands of provisional ballots as well as conditional ballots.
The polls close
Back at the Lucerne polling place, located at First Lutheran Church, after the polls closed staff started breaking down equipment, running reports for the voting machine and doing the necessary paper reports for stacks of pink provisional ballots.
Pivniska and fellow precinct inspector Bruce Maxwell then needed to transport some of the equipment and cases of ballots to the Registrar of Voters Office, where the first absentee ballot count report was issued before 9 p.m. and the last for the night came out at 1:40 a.m.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.