San Rafael, CA – Voters in Marin County are eager to receive final results from the November 8 General Election, and staff from the Marin County Elections Department is equally eager to deliver those totals.
Although an updated online tally is scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday, November 10, it might be another two weeks before most ballots are counted, though the elections staff will know much more by the end of next week.
Registrar of Voters Lynda Roberts said as of Thursday morning approximately 78,000 vote-by-mail ballots and 1,000 provisional ballots, mostly new voter registrations, remained to be tallied. The ballots all came in on Election Day and the day after and require a multistep process before they can be counted.
Based on the election night results and estimated number of ballots on-hand Thursday morning, voter turnout would be approximately 74%, compared to the November 2018 general election that had a turnout of over 82%.
“I know people are anxious about the results,” Roberts said. “The team is doing a great job sorting, verifying signatures, and removing ballots from envelopes. We will be working on Veterans Day and Saturday to ensure we’ll have many more ballots to count for Monday’s results update.”
The ballot processing schedules are posted on www.marinvotes.org.
Under California election law, ballots postmarked on or before Election Day can be received by the Elections Department and processed through November 15. Roberts said it is unknown how many more eligible ballots will be returned from the post office within the seven-day grace period.
Starting with the June election, the County implemented the Voter’s Choice Act that replaced one-day polling places with multiday vote centers. In addition, all registered voters were mailed a ballot 29 days prior to the election. This change expanded services and gave voters more options and flexibility.
“The change was confusing to voters in June and we enhanced our outreach efforts for November so voters would feel better prepared,” Roberts said. “We had far fewer calls from voters this time, so we believe the new efforts were effective and voters are getting used to the new vote center model.”
The Elections Department will continue outreach efforts before each election.
By law, the elections team has until December 8 to certify and report final election results to the Secretary of State. The election is to be ratified by the Marin County Board of Supervisors at its December 13 meeting. Additional information about election result reporting and processing vote-by-mail and provisional ballots can be found on the California Secretary of State’s website.