As California's Nov. 4 special election on Proposition 50 approaches, Placer County officials say a fairly new way of processing mail-in ballots is paying off, increasing in-person voter turnout and cutting down the time it takes to count ballots.

The process, known as "Sign, Scan, and Go," allows voters who drop off their mail-in ballots at vote centers to have them scanned and counted on-site, instead of waiting until the ballots are transported to the main elections office.

Placer County Registrar of Voters Ryan Ronco said the system was made possible after California lawmakers passed Assembly Bill 626 in 2023, giving counties the green light to scan and count mail ballots directly at vote centers.

"I've been working in elections for 32 years. I started in 1993," Ronco said. "When we saw this bill pass, we jumped at the opportunity to make the process faster and more convenient for voters."

Under the new system, ballot scanners are programmed to read the coordinates of each vote, ensuring accuracy and speed.

"The ballot scanner is programmed to read the X-Y coordinates on a ballot so that we know, for example, that particular mark is a vote yes or vote no for a proposition," Ronco explained.

Before the change, voters could only drop off their mail-in ballots to be processed later or surrender them to receive a traditional poll ballot.

Now, in its second year, the process is showing major improvements.

"Before we instituted Sign, Scan, and Go, only about 5% of voters were voting in person on Election Day," Ronco said. "That number jumped to 25%, and we cut our post-election processing time by about three to four days."

As with all election procedures, security remains a top priority.

"Those results are kept on a memory card that's sealed and tracked with a chain of custody," Ronco said. "We don't open them until Election Night, when they're uploaded to our secure server."

Ronco says his team is ready for voters to turn out on Tuesday.

"We have our welcome invitation out," he said. "We're ready for everybody to show up on Election Day."