As California vote-by-mail boxes start to arrive in voters’ mailboxes, KQED asked Kim Alexander about key issues in this election, including mis- and disinformation, preparing to vote and election security. 

Excerpt:

According to the U.S. Census, California has the second-lowest rate of people living alone in the entire country. This means Californians are far more likely to live with people such as parents, grandparents, partners and roommates than most Americans.

But for all the benefits that sharing your home can bring, this might not always be a smooth living situation when it comes to politics — especially during election season.

Americans and their view of politics have been increasingly polarized over the years — to the point where many people have stopped talking to friends and family members about politics and even sought estrangement.

Last month, in a viral post on X (formerly Twitter), the founder of a “divorce registry” company wrote that the question “Can my husband find out who I am voting for in the Presidential Election?” was one she’d been hearing “a lot.”

Excerpt:

Voter ID remains a contentious topic in U.S. elections, and a new California bill related to the practice has become the target of misinformation.

"SB 1174 was just passed in California, and it opens the door for illegal immigrants to vote by eliminating the requirement for voter ID at polling places,"  read a screenshot of an X post shared on Instagram.

The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.) We also saw a Facebook post that said the bill would "ban voter ID statewide."

These claims are misleading and lack context about California’s current voter ID laws.

Excerpt:

In the end, it came down to 19 ballots in Santa Clara County that ultimately made the difference in the hotly contested Congressional District 16 race — ballots that were never counted the first time around due to simple human error.

While a change equal to just a fraction of a percent of votes is unlikely to shift the entire results of most elections, a once-in-a-generation perfect tie in this case exposed the gaffes and fumbles by one county in the tabulation process.

What followed the March primary was two months of counting and recounting more than 182,000 votes in the race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo — a stunning saga that finally came to a close on Wednesday afternoon, with Assemblymember Evan Low emerging victorious over Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian by a margin of just five votes.