How Does L.A. Count Election Ballots? It Begins With a Dog Sniff.
In Los Angeles County, the process of counting election ballots begins with the dogs.
Returned paper ballots are brought by the truckload to the ballot processing warehouse about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Right after the bins of ballots are unloaded, specially trained dogs from the Sheriff’s Department sniff them for any harmful substances.
Once the ballots pass the sniff test, workers in bright yellow vests arrange them into tidy stacks on tables near the loading dock. Then they shuffle the ballots over to the next station.
The choreographed process, which began Tuesday night, includes checking the envelopes for proper signatures, examining the ballots for damage and scanning the votes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/03/us/elections/los-angeles-ballot-counting-dogs.html