COMMUNITY OPINION: Elections are Like PayPal

This community opinion was contributed by Steven Umfleet. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent BenitoLink or other affiliated contributors. BenitoLink invites all community members to share their ideas and opinions. By registering as a BenitoLink user in the top right corner of our home page and agreeing to follow our Terms of Use, you can write counter opinions or share your insights on current issues.

I used to believe that the election process was simple. Receive your ballot, mark your ballot, submit your ballot, and wait for the results. Then the strangest election I’ve ever seen happened in 2020, and I began to wonder what really goes on in our elections.

Many of you have used PayPal. You navigate to a website, select the items you want to buy, and checkout in one click using PayPal. What could be simpler? When I joined a software team in PayPal’s Payment Risk department some years ago, I joined a department with over 1000 employees world-wide. This department exists to counter the efforts of people around the world who spend late nights dreaming up schemes to defraud PayPal. Under the covers, PayPal is not simple.

In February of this year, I began working closely with Francisco Diaz, then our Assistant County Clerk (now our Clerk-Elect). Francisco enthusiastically explained to me everything he could about how our elections work. And what he couldn’t explain to me was not his fault, but mine, because I could not absorb all the information quickly enough. I discovered that, like PayPal, elections are not simple.

Francisco and his staff showed me how signatures are verified, how voters are added and removed from the active registration list, how ballots are laid out across a small county with multiple supervisorial districts, school districts, water districts, etc. Isn’t it great when you receive your ballot and it has all the races that pertain to you? Your convenience didn’t come easily. Think about how many different sets of races, and therefore different layouts of ballots, we have in our county.

I learned the intricacies of voting by mail and voting in person. I learned how many types of problems arise from improperly filled out ballots, and improperly signed ballot envelopes, and the extensive efforts made by our election staff to resolve such issues. I learned about ballot adjudication, about valid and invalid write-in candidates.

Francisco explained the administrative planning that goes into selection of vote center locations and ballot drop box locations, and how considerations of voter access and camera surveillance fit into the picture.

Yes, voting truly is a complex process, and we owe our elections office a round of applause for working diligently to ensure that our elections are run properly.

A wonderful thing about voting is that it distributes power from the elected officials equally to anyone eligible and willing to vote. The truly important question, though, is “What’s at stake with our votes?” Thomas Paine in his “Dissertation on the First Principles of Government” wrote:

“The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected.

To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.”

Our votes are our voice. Our votes are the means by which we remain free. Our votes are the way a democratic people maintain control of their government. So, let’s treat our right to vote with the respect it deserves. If we don’t guard it ourselves, someone will work to take it away or abuse it.

For the June 2022 Primary election, I led a team of election observers with the following mission statement:

Our mission is to ensure that our San Benito County elections are conducted in accordance with State and local laws, to ensure that the rights of all legitimate San Benito County voters are upheld.   We are a group of civic-minded individuals working together to serve our voters, our candidates, and our election workers by our diligent efforts.

That statement clearly references the people of this county: voters, candidates, and election workers. We are looking for additional volunteers to help us for the Nov. 8 General election. We need people willing to monitor the Vote Centers, as well as participate in the many opportunities our county provides to transparently observe the election: to monitor the processing of envelopes, ballot adjudication, and much more. Voting is your voice, so I encourage you to learn about the process, to observe its complexities and intricacies, so that you understand it and are able to communicate your understanding to your friends and associates.

Please contact me at barlesset@charter.net if you are interested in being part of this important effort.