San Rafael, CA – The Marin County Elections Department is down to about 1,000 provisional ballots to count in its tally for the June 5 California Statewide Primary Election. Fresh election results will be posted at 5 p.m. Wednesday, June 20 and will include all vote-by-mail (VBM) ballots countywide, as well as all provisional ballots for the tight District 5 and Corte Madera Town Council races.
Wednesday’s update will include 100 percent of the unofficial count for the tight District 5 and Corte Madera races. Standard procedures are to prioritize counts for the close races first.
Registrar of Voters Lynda Roberts said her staff has counted 64,000 vote-by-mail ballots countywide. She said the projected remaining 1,000 provisional ballots left countywide after Wednesday’s update should be included in a 5 p.m. Friday, June 22, update, meaning Friday’s update will include 100 percent of the unofficial count.
On Thursday, June 21, ballots will be randomly selected to be recounted as part of the 1 percent manual tally, required by California Elections Code §15360. The manual tally process will begin at 9 a.m. and is open to the public as space allows in the Elections Department, located in Suite 121 of the Marin County Civic Center, 3501 Civic Center Drive, San Rafael.
Roberts said the voter turnout for the primary is up to 55 percent. The turnout in the June 2014 Statewide Primary Election was less than 41 percent.
By law, the elections team has until July 5 to certify and report final election results to the Secretary of State, though staff are anticipated to complete that process sooner. The election won’t be formally ratified by the Marin County Board of Supervisors until its July 17 meeting. Additional information about election results reporting and processing vote-by-mail and provisional ballots can be found on the California Secretary of State’s website.
Given recent vote-by-mail trends, the Elections Department will explore options to speed up the post-election day tallying process in the future. Those include potentially investing in higher-speed vote tallying machines and training more part-time staff to participate in the tedious-but-required manual tasks of counting tens of thousands of late VBM ballots received on Election Day either in the mail or dropped off at polling places, as well as provisional ballots.
The verification for VBM and provisional ballots is time-intensive for the election staff. VBM envelopes are checked for a signature match, and provisional ballots are checked against voting records to ensure voters are registered and have not inadvertently voted twice.
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