Publication Date
5-2024
Document Type
Research Project
Abstract
The way Californians vote is changing. While some of the laws surrounding these changes are close to a decade old, the events of 2020 surrounding the November Presidential Election and the COVID-19 pandemic both accelerated and expanded the adoption of contactless voting approaches such as vote-by-mail and the ballot drop box. Neither tool is new to California voters. Vote-by-mail was introduced to the state in 1962 (CA Secretary of State, unknown) and ballot drop boxes were first used in 2014 (Sherman, 2020). In 2016 California Senate Bill 450 (SB-450, 2016) was signed into law. Also known as the Voters Choice Act (VCA), this bill introduced a new way for county election officials to run elections that included expanding in-person access and contactless voting services. Those counties that adopt the VCA, mail every registered voter a vote-by-mail ballot. Voters can use the United States Postal Service (USPS) to mail in their ballot, deliver it to a vote center, or place it in a ballot drop box which is maintained by the county elections department. In addition, voting in-person can be done at a vote center, a larger version of the traditional polling place.
The VCA’s stated goal is to increase voter engagement and turnout by making voting more accessible – particularly among historically marginalized voters (Stein & Woodson, 2024). But, to date, many county elections officials report being uncertain as to whether their efforts have reached historically marginalized voters, including communities of color and low-income voters (Stein & Woodson, 2024). The VCA introduced a set of criteria county elections officials were to use to determine locations for ballot drop boxes and vote centers in order to increase voter engagement in marginalized communities. This paper will model the demographic indicators of marginalization to identify ideal locations for ballot drop boxes and compare that with the placement of ballot drop boxes for the November 2020 Presidential Election in Santa Cruz County, thus providing a tool to improve voter engagement in future elections.
There are three types of ballot drop boxes – the unstaffed ballot drop box, the staffed ballot drop box (usually found inside buildings), and the temporary ballot drop box (usually used on election day at vote centers). With few exceptions noted in the methods section, this study is focused solely on the unstaffed ballot drop box and unless otherwise noted, the term “ballot drop box” will be used to represent only this type of ballot drop box.
Ballot drop boxes provide the security of walking into the elections office to deliver a ballot and the convenience of a mailbox. These boxes allow voters to cast their ballots in a mail-like fashion until the polls close on election day. The California Secretary of State is chartered to enforce the installation and implementation of ballot drop boxes (California Code of Regulations, n.d.). Many unstaffed boxes are available 24 hours a day and are designed to support both walk-up and drive-up enabling voters to stay in their cars as they drop off their ballots, much like a traditional USPS mailbox. These boxes are heavily weighted and bolted to the ground. Many are in well-lit locations, often monitored by security cameras, and designed with accessibility features to ensure all voters can use them with facility.
There is substantial research supporting the use of mail drop boxes, yet little has been focused on their placement. The VCA explicitly states 14 guidelines county elections officials are to consider when locating ballot drop boxes yet there is a dearth of research studying the ballot drop box use habits of voters reflected in those guidelines. The paper will use dimension reduction techniques to model the voters in Santa Cruz County CA and then assess how well the ballot box placement in the 2020 general election supported them.
Research Question: Does ballot drop box placement impact the voting habits of the California Voter’s Choice Act target communities? Specifically, voters with low vehicle access, voters with disabilities, language minority voters, voters living in poverty and people who have not previously voted.
Keywords
elections, equity, geospatial, voting, marginalization
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Department
Geography; Urban and Regional Planning
Recommended Citation
Judith Heher. "Whose Vote Is It Anyway? A Geospatial Analysis of the California Voter's Choice Act Ballot Drop Box Criteria in Santa Cruz County" Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity (2024).
