Administrative
Report
H.8., File # 23-5596 Meeting Date: 3/21/2023
To: MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
From: ELEANOR MANZANO, CITY CLERK
TITLE
DECLARING THE RESULTS OF THE MARCH 7, 2023 GENERAL MUNICIPAL ELECTION ADOPT BY TITLE ONLY RESOLUTION NO. CC-2303-033, A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY
COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF REDONDO BEACH, CALIFORNIA RECITING THE FACT OF THE GENERAL MUNICIPAL ELECTION HELD ON TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 2023, DECLARING THE
RESULTS AND SUCH OTHER MATTERS AS PROVIDED BY LAW
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On March 7, 2023, the City Clerk’s Office conducted an All-Mail Ballot Election for the City of Redondo Beach General Municipal Election for the Elected Offices of City Clerk; City Treasurer; Member of the City Council - District 3; Member of the City Council - District 5; and two seats on the Redondo Beach Unified School District Board of Education. A total of 10,819 ballots were cast in the City (22.37%).
Upon completion of canvass and subsequent manual tally, as required by law, this detailed report has been completed and the Resolution is attached.
BACKGROUND
Under the provisions of the City Charter and the California Elections Code, the City Council adopted Resolutions No. CC-2210-079 and CC-2010-080, which called and gave notice of a General Municipal Election to be conducted by All-Mail Ballot in the City of Redondo Beach on March 7, 2023.
Commencing with the 2019 General Municipal Election, the City Clerk’s Office, with the Council’s concurrence, contracted independently and individually, with State-certified vendors to provide ballot design and tabulation, print-and-mail services as well as a consultant services to assist the City Clerk’s office in fully conducting our election independent of County services. The County continues to provide, however, limited yet essential services including precinct consolidations, the list/data of registered voters, and some signature verification. We also continue to contract with the County for use of four County-owned ballot drop boxes throughout the City. Given there is no ballot drop box located in District 5, for this election, a staffed drop-off location was instituted at Anderson Park Senior Center on Election Day only. A ballot drop box was also available to voters in the City Clerk’s Office beginning February 6 through close of polls on Election Day.
H.8., File # 23-5596 Meeting Date: 3/21/2023
Standalone Election Services Enhancements
The City entered into a subscription agreement with the City Clerk/Elections Official’s Office of the City of Whitter (a former IT election services consultant) for the license of “General Election Management” (GEM) software for the implementation of technology for voter management. This costeffective and time-saving software utilized the County-provided voter registration data to prepare mailing data for issuance of ballots and returned ballot tracking, voter signature validation lookup and tracking, and reporting functions. With these significant enhancements, signature verification of ballot return envelopes were completed quickly and efficiently.
Hart Intercivic services include ballot design and on-site support for electronic ballot scanning and vote tallying. In a cost savings measure, the City purchased Hart Intercivic Verity Central software, by license, with Workstation equipment and support services to negate on-going leasing costs.
This independent election (standalone) dynamic is somewhat unprecedented, requiring much coordination by the City Clerk’s Office to implement and complete. The City Clerk’s office implemented measures to assure a transparent elections process from beginning to end.
Pre-Tabulation Processing of Returned Ballots
Ballots and voter information guides (known more commonly as sample ballots) were mailed to every active registered voter in the City.
Beginning February 13th, each returned ballot return envelope, upon retrieval from the USPS business-reply section, collected at the ballot drop boxes, and dropped at the City Clerk’s office received by voters required individual handling including time-stamping, organizing by precinct, scanning for signature verification in preparation for tabulation. This was a labor-intensive process involving numerous deputized staff.
Publicly accessible venues (City Clerk’s Office and City Manager’s reception area) were prepared with the assistance of IT and Public Works to process sealed ballot return envelopes.
As with all elections, there were ballot envelopes that were not qualified (snags) for counting in this election for various reasons including missing signatures, or signatures that did not match with County Registrar of Voters records. Opportunities to “cure” these ballots were provided to these voters.
Security and Transparency
Safeguarding ballots and a transparent election process is a tenet of the City Clerk’s Office and the City Clerk, specifically, as the City’s elections official and are guided by law. Additional measures were taken to implement the safekeeping and transparency of ballot processing, including a segregated vault in the City Clerk’s office solely for the purpose of housing Election ballots, materials and equipment. A camera system was activated throughout the ballot processing area in the City Clerk’s office and vault. A requirement for two Clerk’s Office staff to be present at all times when handling ballots continues. All processing was done in public view.
Election Night and Post-Election Processing
The City Clerk’s office made a concerted effort to count every qualified ballot qualified at the time of
H.8., File # 23-5596 Meeting Date: 3/21/2023
The City Clerk’s office made a concerted effort to count every qualified ballot qualified at the time of the “close of polls” (officially 8:00 p.m.) on Election night in a publicly accessible and live-streamed environment. On Election night, 7057 ballots were tallied and preliminary results were announced and posted on the City Clerk’s Office web page. Subsequently, the scheduled second/final tally was scheduled for March 16, 2023 at noon providing for semi-final results of 3,762 ballots with a total ballot count of 10,819. The results include vote(s) added pursuant to timely receipt of cured ballot envelope(s) post-completion of digital tally, per Election Code.
Directly thereafter, as required by the Elections Code (Article 5, Section 15360) a 1% manual tally was conducted. This provided the opportunity for verification of machine tabulated ballots cast in a randomly selected precinct(s) or 1% chosen at random by the elections official by hand. The manual tally exactly matched the ballot counter results (machine tally).
Conclusions
The conduct of this Election could have not been completed successfully without the support of other City Departments. Thank you to City Manager Mike Witzansky, the IT Department, the Public Works Department, Library, Finance, and Community Services Departments in assisting with staff hours to complete the canvass.
Thank you also to the dedicated City Clerk’s Office staff who worked especially hard to assist in the preparation and conduct of this election, while completing the other required duties of the department.
The resolution declares the official results of the March 7, 2023 General Municipal Election.
Elected officials will be sworn into office at the Regular Meeting of the City Council of April 4, 2023, and at the next regularly scheduled RBUSD School Board meeting.
SUBMITTED BY:
Eleanor Manzano, City Clerk
ATTACHMENTS
Resolution No. CC-2303-033 Declaring Election Results