California Code of Regulations › Title 2 - Administration › Division 7 - Secretary of State › Chapter 4.7 - One Percent Manual Tally › Section 20313 - Selection of Ballots for Manual Tally

Current through Register 2024 Notice Reg. No. 28, July 12, 2024
(a) The
				elections official shall select precincts and batches of vote-by-mail ballots
				for the one percent manual tally independent of both the voting system and the
				election management system.
(b) The
				elections official shall use one of the following methods to randomly select
				precincts and batches of vote-by-mail ballots for the one percent manual tally:
(1) The elections official creates one
				identical, labeled object such as a slip of paper or ball for each item
				(precinct or batch of vote-by-mail ballots) to tally; places all of these items
				into a container; shuffles those items within the container; and then draws
				items one after the other until all required tally items are selected. Example:
				There are 123 possible precincts to select from. The elections official labels
				123 table tennis balls with an identifier for each precinct and then places
				these balls into a large hopper. The elections official shakes the hopper for
				one minute to ensure the balls have been sufficiently shuffled. The elections
				official then reaches in and randomly grabs one ball to identify a precinct.
				The elections official then draws another ball, and so on.
(2) The elections official creates a list of
				precincts and batches of vote-by-mail ballots; sequentially numbers that list;
				and then identifies which item (precinct or batch of vote-by-mail ballots) to
				tally, by utilizing one of the following methods:
(A) Using a random number generator
				configured to return only numbers represented on that sequential list. Use the
				random number generator to identify all required tally items. Example: There
				are 123 possible precincts to select from. The elections official uses the
				"randbetween()" function in Microsoft Excel to identify a random number between
				1 and 123. The elections official relates this number to the precinct in the
				list. The elections official refreshes this function to identify another random
				number, and so on.
(B) Rolling one
				or more fair 10-sided dice to identify each digit of the sequential number,
				starting with the highest value (left-most) digit. For any die roll that
				returns a number higher than one available for that digit, the elections
				official shall re-roll the die for that digit before proceeding to the next
				digit. Repeat this process for any additional tally item. Example: There are
				123 possible precincts to select from. The elections official first rolls a die
				for the hundreds place digit, rolling until they get the number 0 or 1. They
				proceed to roll for the tens place digit and then the ones place digit. When
				that process is complete, they begin new die rolls to identify a second
				precinct to tally, and so on.
(C)
				Identifying each digit of a sequential number by randomly drawing one numbered
				object such as a slip of paper for each digit, starting with the highest value
				(left-most) digit. Repeat this process for any additional tally item. Example:
				There are 123 possible precincts to select from. The elections official first
				identifies the hundreds place digit by drawing from two slips of paper labeled
				0 and 1. They proceed to pull slips of paper for the tens place digit and then
				the ones place digit. When that process is complete, they start the process
				over to identify a second precinct to tally, and so on.
(D) Placing this list into computerized
				spreadsheet software; assigning a random number next to each item using a
				function in that spreadsheet tool; sorting those randomly assigned numbers in
				either ascending or descending order; and then selecting items starting at the
				top until the requisite number of items is identified. Example: A list of 123
				precincts is added to Microsoft Excel by placing each precinct on in its own
				cell in sequential rows. The elections official uses Excel's randbetween()
				function to assign a random number greater than or equal to 0 and less than 1
				next to each cell. The elections official converts these random numbers to
				static text so that they will not change when the list is sorted. The elections
				official sorts these now-static random numbers, along with the precincts in the
				neighboring cells, in descending order. The elections official selects the top
				two items in this sorted list.