California Regulations § 20832 Manual Recounts, "Vote for One" Contests.Version dated Oct. 30, 2024

(a) Prior to counting the ballots, and in the clear view of the requestor, spokespersons and observers, all ballots for the precinct shall be separated into stacks that do and do not contain the contest. Those that contain the contest shall be sorted as follows:

(b) Starting with the voted ballots, one member of the special recount board shall state the candidate or position for which the vote was cast making sure the requestor, interested parties and their representatives can observe the contest subject to recount.

(c) After the vote is stated and counted, the counted ballot shall be placed on the table, with the counted ballots placed in stacks of either 10 or 25, at the discretion of the elections official.

(d) Two members of the special recount board shall record the votes stated, marking hashes in succession on their individual tally sheets. Each of these two board members shall announce when he or she has counted 10 (or 25) votes. If both members call out the same number of counted votes at the same time, the tally shall continue forward for the next 10 (or 25) ballots. If both recorders do not reach 10 (or 25) additional votes on the same ballot, then the count for the last interval of 10 (or 25) ballots shall be stricken from their tally sheets and those ballots recounted.

(e) A requestor or an authorized spokesperson may request to inspect any ballot. Tallying shall be halted while the ballot is presented to the requestor or spokesperson for closer inspection. At no time may any requestor or spokesperson touch or come into physical contact with any of the ballots. Tallying will resume once the requestor or spokesperson has completed the inspection, which the requestor or spokesperson shall complete in a reasonable amount of time.

(f) Tallying shall continue in this manner, until all stacks of voted ballots have been tallied.

(g) After all voted ballots have been counted and tallied, the two special recount board members who have been recording the votes shall each independently calculate the total votes for each candidate or position on their tally sheets. When both have completed totaling, they shall each announce their totals one candidate or vote position at a time. If both announce the identical vote total for each candidate or position in the recounted contest, the recount of that precinct shall be deemed complete and the results reported to the elections official. If the special recount board members announce different vote totals for any candidate or vote position in the recounted contest, the recount tallies recorded will be examined. If the difference can be explained by the special recount board or supervisor, or by the elections official or his or her designee, it shall be corrected on the tally sheet. A written report shall be made on an attachment to the tally sheet. In the event of an unexplained discrepancy, the results for that precinct shall be discarded and the recount of that precinct shall start over.