BySaskia KennedyonSeptember 25, 2026•
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Listen to Bob Page, Orange County Registrar of Voters speaking to the League of Women Voters at their luncheon at Coyote Hills Golf Course in Fullerton on Saturday, September 19, 2026
At the League’sannual kickoff luncheon, Page explained how Orange County runs its elections, including ballot processing, audits and voter roll maintenance, six weeks before the November 3 election
Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page told members of the League of Women Voters of North Orange County (LWVNOC) that California’s vote counts are careful, not slow. He spoke at the League’s annual Kickoff Luncheon and Silent Auction on Saturday, September 19, at Coyote Hills Golf Club.
“We’re not slow,” Page said. “We have accessibility decisions and priorities that California put in place in terms of when ballots can come back… But when we get them, we are efficient.“
His talk was titled “Ensuring Orange County Voting Is Easy, and Elections Are Secure.” It covered election administration, voter access, security and transparency.
League honors Page
League President Sharon O’Hara opened the meeting. She introduced the board and reminded members that the League is“ever, ever vigilant to defend democracy in the courts, in the media, and on the sidewalks.“
Before Page spoke, O’Hara and Vice President Gerri McNenny gave him the League’s 2026 Community Impact Award. Introducing him, O’Hara pointed to the League’s own legal fight over voter privacy. In June 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Page for unredacted voter records, including driver’slicense numbers and partial Social Security numbers. In November 2025, the League of Women Voters of California, LWV Orange Coast and LWVNOC moved to intervene as defendants to protect voter privacy, represented by the ACLU. That case is on hold while a parallel DOJ lawsuit against the California Secretary of State plays out. A federal judge dismissed the statewide case in January, and it is now on appeal before the Ninth Circuit.
Volunteers wanted
Voter Services Director Sue Guilford asked members to sign up as question sorters, timers and moderators for the League’s upcoming candidate forums. She also asked for volunteers to present “pros and cons” of the 14 statewide measures on the November ballot. Guilford said those presentations are nonpartisan education and are kept separate from the League’s advocacy positions. A training session is planned for Monday, September 28. She also urged members to share Vote411.org, the League’s nationwide voter guide, which shows voters what is on their ballot.
Key dates for November 3 election
Page has led the Orange County office since March 2022. Before that, he was registrar of voters in San Bernardino County from 2018 to 2022. He walked through the calendar for the general election:
- September 24: Voter information guides begin mailing.
- October 5: Ballots for all active registered voters are mailed. Page said the county’s 128 ballot drop boxes open the same day. State law requires at least one drop box for every 15,000 voters.
- October 19: Last day to register and still receive a ballot by mail. Voters who miss it can use conditional voter registration in person.
- October 24: 39 vote centers open, 10 am to 6 pm. Another 152 open October 31, for 191 in all. On Election Day, they are open 7 am to 8 pm.
- November 25, 5 pm: Deadline for voters to fix a signature problem on their ballot, 22 days after Election Day.
- December 3: Deadline to certify results.
Mail ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and arrive within seven days. Page noted that the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld that grace period. About 85% of Orange County voters now vote by mail, and drop boxes are the most popular way to return ballots.
Page said voters have plenty of options: mail, drop box, handing a marked ballot to a vote center, or voting in person. “We don’tsteer somebody to one choice over another,” he said.
Why results take time
Page said the biggest factor in how fast results come out is how early voters return their ballots. In the 2022 general election, the office received 311,000 mail ballots on or after Election Day. The county then spent about $4 million to double its ballot processing equipment. Before, only 77.5% of ballots received before Election Day made it into the first election-night report. In this June primary, 94.1% did. The office also reached 96.6% of accepted ballots counted within seven days, which Page said was half the time it took in 2018.
The state budget included $29 million to help counties count faster, plus $5 million for county voter education. Page said Orange County’s share was $3.2 million, but the money did not arrive until August 27, so some of it will be spent after the election. He said the office is expanding its ballot inspection space, replacing old computers, and doubling its paid advertising under the slogan “Your vote counted first.” For the first time, it will also use automated signature verification software. The software will only accept high-confidence matches. Under state law, a signature can still only be rejected if three staff members agree.
Security steps
Page said his office completes more than 125 security and accuracy tasks for every statewide election. “All systems are vulnerable in some way,” he said, “but we do all these steps to make sure we’re protecting them.“
He described the office’s main safeguards:
- Drop boxes are made of thick metal and bolted to concrete, and each one has its own key. Two-person collection teams get new routes every day and carry GPS-tracked phones. At every stop, they photograph the box being emptied and resealed before they can move on.
- Electronic poll books update in real time across all vote centers, so a second ballot from the same voter gets caught.
- Paper ballots are used for every vote. “Every ballot is on a piece of paper,” Page said. “So we can audit the election results.“
- Voting software is wiped after each election. Before the next one, it is reloaded from a “golden image” delivered by the Secretary of State, and hash codes are checked to confirm nothing was altered.
- Audits: the office does the state-required 1% manual tally. It also does a voluntary risk-limiting audit, using dice rolls to generate a 20-digit random seed. “I’ve never come across any discrepancy in an audit that was caused by the voting system,” Page said.
The office has 54 full-time election staff. For this election, it will hire more than 1,300 vote center workers, and all of them are background-checked and trained. Page said his office recently ran a cybersecurity tabletop exercise with the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). He also said a sheriff’s sergeant is assigned to his office while vote centers are open.
Voter rolls
“Voter roll maintenance is a daily task,” Page said. Orange County has about 1.9 million registered voters, and in 2024 the office averaged more than 81,000 registration changes a month. Voters who are marked inactive and then don’t vote or update their registration through two federal general elections are canceled. In 2025, that removed more than 176,000 inactive voters. Page said 1.5% of ballots mailed in the last primary came back undeliverable, well below the Postal Service’s rate for first-class mail overall.
Page explained that under current federal and state law, voters confirm they are citizens by swearing to it under penalty of perjury, and the office has no authority to independently verify it. Proposition 39 on the November ballot, a constitutional amendment requiring voter ID, would change parts of that system. So would the SAVE America Act pending in Congress.
Questions from the audience
Asked about voter fraud, Page said the district attorney has prosecuted two voter fraud cases since he arrived in 2022. One was a Canadian citizen who registered and voted in 2016. The other was Costa Mesa resident Laura Lee Yourex, who registered her dog. The ballot cast in the dog’s name was accepted in the 2021 recall election. It was rejected in the 2022 primary because the registration was flagged for missing proof of identity, which is required for federal elections. Yourex pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in April. Page said his office passes suspected double-voting cases to the district attorney. “Registrar of Voters is an administrative agency,” he said. “We conduct elections. We do not regulate, prosecute, investigate.“
Jodi Balma, a political science professor at Fullerton College, asked about ranked-choice voting. A judge ordered Huntington Beach to adopt it in June, and Irvine voters will decide on Measure D in November. Page said thecounty’s Hart-Verity voting system cannot yet count ranked-choice ballots. Hart submitted an update for state certification in late 2024 that still hasn’t been approved. Page added that state election law may stop a city using ranked-choice voting from consolidating its election with a statewide election. He noted that Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a 2019 bill that would have allowed ranked-choice voting more widely.
On accessibility, Page said every vote center has at least three accessible ballot marking devices, with audio and touchscreen options. Any voter can use remote accessible vote-by-mail. Voters may bring up to two people to help them, as long as neither is their employer or a representative of their union.
On whether law enforcement could seize ballots, Page cited the Riverside County case. There, Sheriff Chad Bianco used court warrants to seize more than 650,000 ballots from the November 2025 special election. The California Supreme Court heard arguments in August. Page said he is waiting to see its ruling.
Page closed by urging voters to vote early at ocvote.gov/early.
“Bottom line, voting early, you don’t lose any of your opportunities,” he said.
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