The Humboldt County Office of Elections described the step‑by‑step processing of vote‑by‑mail ballots in a recorded briefing, explaining how ballots are received, verified, scanned and prepared for certification.

The presentation explained why those steps exist and how the office maintains chain of custody and transparency: ballots arrive by United States Postal Service or certified drop box, are stored securely, undergo automated sorting and two independent signature checks, and are later scanned and subject to independent verification and a 1% manual tally before results are certified.

According to the briefing, ballots arrive at the elections office either through the U.S. Postal Service or through certified ballot drop boxes. On arrival, ballots are placed in trays and kept in a secured, locked location until processing begins. Processing starts with a first pass through an automated “fluent sorter” that reads each envelope’s unique barcode and takes a digital photo of the envelope signature to support signature review.

Elections staff review signatures in a two‑person process: each signature is checked twice by two different elections officials. The presenter said that during signature checking staff see only a voter’s name, address and prior signature; party registration or the votes contained on the ballot are not visible at any stage of signature review. After that review, ballots are returned to the sorter for a second pass.

In the second pass the sorter’s small blade opens each envelope so ballots designated for curing or additional signature review can be removed. Ballots with mismatched signatures are referred to an election specialist, who contacts the voter by phone and mail to request a verified signature; if the voter responds with an updated signature, the ballot proceeds to opening and scanning. The office described a process to separate voter identity from the marked ballot before scanning and to recount stacks to verify all ballots remain accounted for.

Scanned ballot images are logged and placed into tamper‑evident containers with a form documenting the count, scan time and the person who scanned them. The tabulation software flags overvotes (more choices than allowed), undervotes (fewer choices than allowed) and write‑ins. A team of elections analysts then reviews flagged ballots to determine voter intent — whether a mark is stray or reflects an intentional choice.

The briefing said the Humboldt County scans are independently verified by the Elections Transparency Project, described in the recording as a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that produces its own digital ballot images using open‑source tools and independent scanners. That independent check is presented as an additional layer of accountability available to the public upon request.

After scanning and verification, the office conducts a 1% manual tally of returned ballots to further verify the accuracy of tabulating software. The presenter said that, under California rules, the Secretary of State tests and certifies election tabulating systems and that certified machines must meet a stated accuracy threshold (described in the briefing as a 9,250,000 to 1 margin of error).

The briefing also outlined the county’s certification timeline: results are posted weekly until certification, and all ballots returned by election day from Humboldt County’s approximately 82,000 registered voters must be counted and results certified within 30 days, at which point the county submits certified results to the California Secretary of State.

The recorded presentation concluded with contact information for the Humboldt County Office of Elections and an invitation to learn more or apply to serve as an election worker.