San Rafael, CA – The first local results of the November 5 election were posted at 8:04 p.m. Tuesday, November 5, by the Marin County Elections Department, and election night counting of polling place ballots ended at 10 p.m. with more than 11,000 ballots counted. About 2,600 ballots remain to be tallied as of November 7.
“This was the first use of the new voting system, and everything went smoothly,” said Registrar of Voters Lynda Roberts. “Unlike past elections, we had very few phone calls from poll workers on election morning needing help with the equipment.”
Elections staff estimated on the morning of November 7 that 1,900 vote-by-mail ballots and nearly 700 provisional ballots remained to be tallied. Those 2,600 ballots require signature verification before envelopes can be opened and ballots counted.
Roberts predicted that most, if not all, of the vote-by-mail ballots will be counted by the planned November 8 results update. Updated vote tallies will be placed onto our election results webpage each Wednesday and Friday until the election is declared completed. Roberts anticipated certifying the election before Thanksgiving.
About 3,400 vote-by-mail ballots arrived on Election Day either in the mail or from voters who dropped off their vote-by-mail ballots at a precinct or at the Marin County Civic Center. The law allows mailed ballots to be counted up to three days after the election as long as they were postmarked by Election Day. Another recent law change allows voters to register on Election Day at the Civic Center and submit a provisional ballot, which also requires verification before being counted.
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