There is no shortage of information or opinions about elections right now.
Court cases, proposed changes to election laws, national political debates, and claims on social media can make it difficult to separate what is actually happening from what might happen. For voters, all of that noise can lead to a reasonable question: Can I be confident that my vote will be secure and accurately counted here in San Luis Obispo County this November?
The answer is yes.
But as your local election official, I don’t think you should have to take my word for it.
Confidence in an election should come from knowing how it works and being able to verify that safeguards are in place. In SLO County, election security is built in layers—and many of those layers are things voters can see for themselves.
Start with the ballot.
Every vote cast in SLO County produces a paper record. Our election results do not exist only inside a computer. We have physical ballots that can be examined and counted by people.
The equipment used to count those ballots is not connected to the internet. California prohibits voting systems from being connected to the internet or receiving election data through an outside network.
And we don’t simply turn on that equipment on Election Day and hope it works.
Before each election, our team conducts logic and accuracy testing. We run ballots containing known votes through the voting equipment and make sure the system reports exactly the results it should. For the Nov. 3 election, that public testing is scheduled to begin Sept. 30 at 10 a.m.
There are safeguards for vote-by-mail ballots, too.
When a vote-by-mail ballot is returned, election workers verify the voter’s signature before the ballot can be counted. If a required signature is missing or does not compare with the signatures in the voter’s record, California law provides a process that allows the voter to correct the problem.
Our goal is not to ask the public for blind trust. It is to conduct an election in a way that earns confidence through transparency and verification.
We also maintain controls over the physical ballots themselves. Ballots are tracked and protected as they are collected, transported, processed, counted, and stored. Seals, logs, and chain-of-custody procedures help us account for ballots throughout that process.
Then, after the votes have been counted electronically, we check the machines against the paper.
As part of the official canvass, election workers conduct a manual tally. We physically examine and hand-count ballots from randomly selected precincts and compare that count with the results reported by the voting system. SLO County’s public 1 percent manual tally for this election is scheduled to begin Nov. 18 at 9 a.m.
Paper ballots. Certified equipment. Pre-election testing. Signature verification. Chain of custody. A hand-count check after the election.
No single safeguard has to carry the entire weight of election security.
That is important to understand when you hear claims about a possible vulnerability in voting equipment or election procedures. Finding a vulnerability is not the same as showing that someone exploited it. And showing that something could theoretically happen is not evidence that it did happen or that an election result was changed.
Good security assumes people will look for weaknesses. Systems are tested, procedures are reviewed, and safeguards are improved precisely because election officials take those risks seriously.
There is another important safeguard that we want SLO County voters to know about: you.
Many parts of the election process are open to public observation. Members of the public can observe activities such as voting equipment testing, vote-by-mail processing, and the post-election canvass.
We welcome that scrutiny.
Our goal is not to ask the public for blind trust. It is to conduct an election in a way that earns confidence through transparency and verification.
That also means being transparent about what happens after Election Day.
The results you see on election night are not the final results. Valid ballots will continue to be processed and counted after Nov. 3. Vote totals will change as those ballots are added.
That is not evidence that votes are being changed. It is evidence that votes are still being counted.
We know the national conversation about elections can be contentious. SLO County Elections is monitoring legal developments that could affect the November election, and we will follow the law that is in effect.
But while headlines may change, our responsibility here at home does not. Our job is to make sure every eligible voter can cast a ballot, every valid ballot is counted, the process is secure, and the results are accurate.
Ask us questions, learn how the process works, and come observe it for yourself.
Your ballot is worth protecting. And that’s our job. ∆
Elaina Cano is SLO County’s elected clerk-recorder. Respond with a letter to the editor emailed to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Sept 17-24, 2026.
