‘I think we’re going to get slammed at the polling places’: Contra Costa County election workers gear up for big day.
on November 2, 2026
Kristin Connelly doesn’t have a minute to spare. Six days before the election — or “E-6” — Connelly power-walked past volunteers and staff members in the hallways of the Contra Costa Elections Office in Martinez, shouting encouragement while hustling to the next stop.
Later, she stood outside the building, thanking approaching voters as they slipped their ballots into one of the county’s 43 drop boxes.
If this election is anything like the others Connelly has run during her four-year tenure as the county’s clerk-recorder-registrar, Tuesday will lbe a long night for her staff.
“I think we’ll probably be here till 3 a.m.,” she said. “I think we’re going to get slammed at the polling places.”
In addition to the approximately 100 temporary workers hired by the county in the weeks leading up to the election, around 1,100 staff and volunteers — all of whom have been recruited and trained — will be running Contra Costa’s 150 polling places from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.
According to Rose Mena, a volunteer who retired two years ago after 24 years with the Elections Office, few people understand the painstaking preparation that goes into the process, whether the voting is done in person or by mail.
“I was listening to some people talking yesterday,’ she said Wednesday, “and they’re like, ‘Oh, no need for signature. They’re not even counted. They’re just run by machines.’ And I was like, that’s not how it’s done. I said, ‘Every single signature is checked by an individual.'”
E-Day operations launch about three months before the election: Military members and overseas voters receive their ballots first, at least 60 days before Nov. 3, and not long after, voter information guides are mailed throughout the county.
Over the course of 44 training sessions, poll workers prepare for Election Day, but a surge of in-person voting can quickly overwhelm a polling place. At the Elections Office, spreadsheets reveal how many votes are coming in through the U.S. Postal Service versus drop boxes; so far in this election, a significant number of people have held on to their ballots rather than vote early. If that trend holds, Connelly predicts a 50% increase in in-person voting.
Since Oct. 5, county residents have been able to hand in their ballots in person at Contra Costa’s Elections Office, where they are delivered to a secure location. Ballots placed in drop boxes or the mail trigger a controlled process that guarantees each vote is counted — and that no staff member can manipulate the results.
First, the ballots — still in unopened envelopes — are driven to the operations center, which is wired with cameras. The envelopes are fed into a whirring scanner that can process 38,000 envelopes per hour, but usually runs at half-speed to prevent jams, as it captures an image of each voter’s signature. In the event a voter forgets to sign the envelope, or if there is a signature mismatch, the ballot undergoes three levels of verification before the person is then sent follow-up reminders to “cure,” or verify, the ballot.
After a device slices off the tops of the envelopes, the ballots head to an extraction site that has been temporarily set up at a sports facility in Martinez. At dozens of tables, volunteers sit side by side, manually counting and stacking the envelopes with a tool that Connelly compares to a red chopstick, which keeps them from missing any stray ballot cards.
The momentum will reach its apex during “election mode” Tuesday, Connelly said. Volunteers will sort the envelopes as quickly as possible, music blasting in the background to help them keep up the pace. The work doesn’t stop; when it is time to take a 20-minute break, the person will immediately pass the baton.
“In general, if you like elections, you are a bit of an adrenaline junkie, and it’s really exciting,” Mena said.
That adrenaline is necessary to match the tempo.
“The state definitely wants us to be counting faster,” Connelly said. “‘Move faster, move faster, move faster!,’”
Richmond bus riders could lose early and late service if transit tax fails
Richmond Confidential welcomes comments from our readers, but we ask users to keep all discussion civil and on-topic. Comments post automatically without review from our staff, but we reserve the right to delete material that is libelous, a personal attack, or spam. We request that commenters consistently use the same login name. Comments from the same user posted under multiple aliases may be deleted. Richmond Confidential assumes no liability for comments posted to the site and no endorsement is implied; commenters are solely responsible for their own content.
