Lassen County’s Registrar of Voters Julie Bustamante, announced Wednesday that the new LiveBallot website is up and running, providing on-line information and ballots to some of the hardest to reach voters, those in the military and voters who are overseas.
Lassen County is ushering in a new era of helping our military and overseas citizens cast a ballot, joining El Dorado County in applying for a federal grant that has allowed Lassen and 12 other California counties to send ballots and voting information electronically.
The counties’ consortium, known as Cal E-Promise, has provided an easy to use, online interface for voters to access their ballot at their convenience. This is especially important for deployed military voters that may have unpredictable schedules.
“Historically the biggest challenge to serving military and overseas citizens is the slow ballot delivery and return,” reports Bustamante. “This grant has enabling us to use technology to streamline ballot delivery to our voters anywhere in the world.”
Current law does not allow voters to mark the ballot online or return the ballot by email, electronically delivered ballots must be mailed or faxed back to the Elections Department.
Bustamante is asking for feedback from military and overseas citizens who use the system. “We believe it will increase participation in the elections process and we want to hear from voters who use it. If we can make more improvements, we will.”
Lassen County’s military and overseas citizens can access their ballot electronically by going to the Elections Department’s Military and Overseas Voters website at: https://ca.liveballot.com/lassen.
“Please note that this is not internet voting,” said Bustamante. “This system delivers blank absentee ballots to selected California voters who are protected under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act—eliminating the time needed to send those ballots by mail.
