As voters head to the polls today, California’s county election officials say they’re ready for anything, including attempts to interfere with the vote.
Registrars have run security drills with local law enforcement, the Secretary of State, and FBI. They say strict chain-of-custody rules keep ballots under their control.
Placer County Registrar Ryan Ronco said his office is used to citizen and government observers, but the ballots stay put.
“If somebody’s going to come in and want to take the ballots that we’ve processed and take them off site, then we’ve got a different conversation that we’re going to have," said Ronco. "I’d chain myself to those materials and make sure that they weren’t going anywhere.”
Ronco’s position got legal backing recently. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Trump administration attempt to force California to set aside more than 20,000 ballots. And state Attorney General Rob Bonta rolled out new guidance to protect ballots from seizure.