Bill limiting ballot hand counting in California becomes law; one county pledges to defy statute

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

54% : In response, state legislators introduced and overwhelmingly passed AB 969 in September, which allows hand-counting under narrow circumstances: during regularly scheduled elections in places with under 1,000 registered voters and special elections with fewer than 5,000 voters.
54% : But state and federal law requires jurisdictions to contract with an approved vendor, like Dominion, to provide accessible voting machines that allow all voters to cast a ballot privately and independently.
50% : To comply with the law, Allen said the county had to spend another $950,000 in April to ink a deal with Hart InterCivic, which now provides Shasta County with software and machines.
44% : But speaking with ABC News on Wednesday night, Shasta County Board of Supervisors President Patrick Jones said that the supervisors were still committed to implementing a hand count regardless of what the law says.
41% : "We made this decision before the legislature acted," Jones said, adding that the board believes passing the law under an urgency statute that allows it to go into effect immediately violated the state's constitution.
37% : Set to go into effect immediately, the law deals a blow to Shasta County's conservative-majority Board of Supervisors, which voted 3-2 in January to cancel its contract with Dominion amid a flurry of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about the company in the wake of the 2020 election, leaving it without a way to conduct elections for a time.

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