Department of Elections
City and County of San Francisco
John Arntz, Director

For Immediate Release
SAN FRANCISCO, Saturday, November 5, 2022 – The Department of Elections encourages voters to use the Department’s online Voter Portal at sfelections.org/voterportal to track the status of their vote-by-mail ballots and to check whether the Department received and counted their ballots. The Voter Portal will alert voters if there is an issue preventing the Department from counting a voter’s ballot, such as not signing the return envelope. The Voter Portal will also inform voters how to resolve any issues that prevent the counting of their ballots. 

Besides providing information via the Voter Portal, within 24 hours of determining that a voter’s ballot cannot be counted, the Department will also mail a multilingual notice to the voter. Additionally, the Department will also contact the voter by telephone and/or email, if such contact information is available in the voter’s record. Finally, a team of Department drivers will attempt to hand-deliver notices to voters who have not responded to any of these attempted notifications.

“If you receive a notice indicating your vote-by-mail ballot cannot be counted unless you take further action, please help us count your ballot by following the instructions in the notice,” said Director John Arntz. “Our office will use each available method to get in touch with voters whose ballots require corrective actions. We will provide notices via postal mail, email, telephone, and the online Voter Portal, and will even hand-deliver such notices to the voters’ mail boxes if there is no response.”

Voters who are yet to return their vote-by-mail ballots for the November 8, 2022 election are reminded to sign their ballot envelopes in their own handwriting and return them timely. Ballots returned by mail must be postmarked on or before Election Day, while ballots dropped off in person at a voting site or official drop box must be received no later than 8 p.m. on Election Day.

###

Department of Elections
City and County of San Francisco
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
City Hall, Room 48
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 554-4375
sfelections.org