EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. – This year’s election had issues with signatures sweeping the nation—in California alone this past Saturday, nearly 130,000 ballots still needed fixes from those who didn’t enclose their ballot properly, forgot to sign, signed in the wrong place, or had signatures that didn’t match their voter registration card. These corrections are known as “curing” and take time as voter registration offices reach out to voters to ensure their voice is heard in the election.

While ballot curing happens every election, the number that needed to be cured was unusual for El Dorado County. Bill O’Neill, the county registrar of voters, said, “We’ve never had this number of signatures rejected by far. It was really strange.” As of Friday, the total number of ballots that still needed curing is 1,067.

O’Neill had some explanation for what might have happened. “People might have gotten lazy—we had quite a few ballots with no signatures or just a line through the signature area. Lots of people also turned out to vote for the first time in a while for this election. So, if they hadn’t voted in a while, their signature may have changed significantly from their voter registration card.”

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Election officials and the office of the registrar of voters are required to attend signature verification classes and verify 100% of the signatures each election.

But some other strangeness happened on the voter’s side. Grace O’Toole, a resident of South Lake Tahoe, was one of the people who received a postcard from the registrar of voter’s office stating she needed to verify her signature. But O’Toole has voted in every election since 2016 through the vote by mail system—and has never received a request for signature verification until now.

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O’Toole turned in her ballot at a drop-off box on October 28, then received a notice from the elections department on Saturday, November 2. “I almost ignored it, because to be honest, it kind of looked like spam mail,” she said.

With only days before the election, O’Toole said she panicked, because the postcard had no specified calendar date for when she needed to send them a signature. “It just says that it needed to be two days prior to election certification. I thought, ‘That could be Wednesday or Thursday—I have no idea. And the post office is closed on Sundays, so I can’t mail it.'”

O’Toole called the office to clarify her concerns, then told them she would both mail and fax her signature to make sure that it was done before the election. She got the unclear response that the office had “up to ten days” to verify her signature.

Then, when O’Toole tried to fax her signature, she discovered the number on the postcard was wrong.

The El Dorado County registrar of voters’ office moved about a year ago to a new location, meaning they also changed fax numbers. Apparently, this wasn’t updated on the postcard sent to voters that needed to cure their ballot.

O’Toole said she felt dismissed when she called again to verify the number. “They didn’t really seem to care, which was more concerning to me than the fax number being wrong,” she said. Rather than being provided the correct fax number, she was instructed to look at the voter’s informational pamphlet—which O’Toole had already tossed, seeing as she’d voted already. “I felt kind of shamed for calling back, pointing out that the number was wrong, and then being told to go to an entirely different document for contact information.”

The remaining question for her was “How can I fix this for the future or re-register for a new signature?”

Through pursuing O’Toole’s story, the Tribune notified the registrar of her experience and the incorrectly printed fax number.

O’Neill stated, “We take every voter’s call very seriously and it would disappoint me tremendously to know someone’s call was dismissed. During the election cycle, we get about a thousand calls a day and have temporary staff as well as our permanent staff answering the phones. But it’s our job to ensure that their concerns are taken seriously.”

And the answer for O’Toole’s question: When you register to vote online, you can either register your DMV signature or register a new signature. Alternatively, you can register to vote at any government building, which will have postage paid and will update your signature for the next election.

To fix the fax number issue, the office is preparing to mail out postcards with the correct number today and tomorrow. “We want to get 100% cure and if anyone has any questions, they can contact our office,” said O’Neill. The office phone number is (530) 621-7480 or toll-free at (800) 730-4322.

For those who need to cure their ballots, cures must be returned no later than December 1.

You can mail your signature verification to the office through PO Box 678001, Placerville, CA 95667. Or you can fax it to (530) 677-1014. Lastly, you can also email it to vbm@edcgov.us.

Not sure if your vote was counted? You can check online at https://eldorado.ballottrax.net/voter

Eli Ramos is a reporter for Tahoe Daily Tribune. They are part of the 2024–26 cohort of California Local News Fellows through UC Berkeley.