2025 - Winner for Exemplary Contingency Planning and Emergency Response Efforts

Following the 2025 Los Angeles County wildfires, 88,000 registered voters lived in areas where mail delivery became unreliable or impossible. Entire neighborhoods no longer functioned as valid mailing addresses, yet these voters remained eligible to participate in the states special election. Standard election processes rely on deliverable addresses, and repeated undeliverable mail can trigger inactivity procedures. To address this, LA County Elections launched a contingency outreach effort focused on maintaining ballot access. Using emergency perimeter data, geospatial matching, and targeted outreach, staff identified affected voters and maintained contact until a workable ballot delivery method was confirmed. As a result, 24,000 displaced voters successfully received and returned ballots who might otherwise have lost practical access to voting.