If you want to see how San Francisco counts votes, you can watch it happen. The Department of Elections livestreams many of its processes for public observation and posts a calendar of the activities it will stream for the Nov. 3 election on its website.
What you can see
The San Francisco Standard reported Tuesday that there are five main livestreams, each showing a different room in City Hall where votes are processed. Viewers can watch workers sort ballots, scan and compare signatures, check provisional ballots and remove ballots from envelopes. The feeds have no sound. The Standard said they run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day until all the votes are counted, and that the city has streamed them in some form for at least 13 years.
In an Oct. 6 announcement, the department said each returned envelope's signature is imaged and compared with the voter's registration record. Once a signature is verified, the envelope is opened and the ballot cards are taken out and scanned. The department said it aims to verify signatures within one day of receiving a ballot, and voters can track their own ballots through its Voter Portal.
“Our staff follow strict chain-of-custody procedures so that no single individual handles a ballot independently,” Director John Arntz said in the announcement.
Watching in person
The department says the public can also watch ballot processing in person at its office in City Hall, Room 48. For the count schedule, see our San Francisco results timeline.