DOJ subpoenas California election officials

Now just days away, but there are still legal wranglings going on about voting right here in California. We're now learning the Justice Department issued subpoenas to California election officials as part of its request that the state set aside ballots that it believes are from non-citizens. Those subpoenas order employees of the L.A. County Registrar's Office to appear in court the day after the election seeking information about any effort to prevent non-citizen votes from being counted. Now yesterday, a judge in Los Angeles appointed a special master to evaluate the Trump administration claims of 20,000 non-citizen ballots. The Trump administration is appealing the judge's decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. We are five days away from that pivotal off-year election, and the stakes are very high for the state, for the nation at stake, who will be the next governor of California. And so is control of Congress. Officials stress registered voters should cast their ballots as early as possible. KTVU's Jesse Gary joins us now in studio with more on these Election Day preps. Jesse? Mike Claudine, good evening to you, and boy, Tuesday coming up fast, and election officials here in the Bay and beyond say the vast majority of voters have cast or will cast their ballots by mail or drop them off in those collection bins you see. As the clock eases towards four days left, most counties say they are ready. We are. Very ready. We've had 108,000 voters already cast ballots. San Mateo County's assistant election officer says roughly 90% of residents are opting for vote-by-mail or dropping their ballots off. According to the California Voter Foundation, that's a statewide trend. We have grown from only 33% of voters casting vote-by-mail ballots to now, in June, we had almost 90% of our voters cast vote-by-mail ballots. So that really has impacted the speed of our vote count. Officials say there's a glut of ballots that will come in over the weekend and in the days leading up to Tuesday. And many voters will drop off their ballots. All of which slows the counting process. That delays our ability to get that into the vote count on election day, right? And so, I mean, we're throwing every resource we can to be as caught up as we can, so that we have as much of the vote in the count that I release on election night. California voters have really every reason to feel confident. And our election results and the speed of counting is improving. Earlier this year, the state allocated $40 million to help the individual counties prepare for Election Day. We are able to bring in extra staff, extend hours on the days before and after Election Day. So, yeah, we'll have the proper amount of staff to process the amount of ballots that we typically receive. Officials say delivering and processing your ballot at a polling place on Election Day is the fastest, most secure way to ensure your ballot is counted. We added an additional shift in terms of extending people's shifts to go further into the evening. And at this juncture, we're at a good clip in terms of keeping track with the ballots that come in and processing them. 22 days after Election Day, the ballots that have errors or problems with their signatures must be what's called cured. That means they'll get fixed or that'll, the discrepancy will be resolved. That'll be November 25th, deadline for that. December 3rd is the final day that all ballots must be certified. Some counties can choose to do that sooner if they like. Guys? All right, Jesse Gary, live tonight here in studio. Jesse, thank you.