San Rafael, CA – Ballot tabulation continued this week for the Marin County Elections Department staff. Registrar of Voters Lynda Roberts said staff worked hard over the Veterans Day holiday weekend to ensure a large count for the second results update that was posted Monday, November 14.
“The extra effort really paid off, and we were able to prepare and count over 30,000 vote-by-mail and provisional ballots for the update, which is a lot just six days after the election,” she said.
The deadline to accept ballots postmarked on or before Election Day was November 15, so no additional ballots will be included for counting. That leaves about 28,000 ballots to prepare as of Wednesday morning, November 16.
The process has multiple steps that take time and include sorting, signature verifying, and removing ballots from envelopes. “The team is doing a great job every day accurately preparing hundreds of ballots for counting,” Roberts said. “We will assure that every eligible ballot is tabulated.”
Online results updates are scheduled no later than 5 p.m. on November 16, 18, and 23. Marin voter turnout in the 2018 general election – a mid-term election with no presidential campaign – was a little over 82% compared with 60% in the 2014 mid-term. Roberts anticipates the turnout in this general election will end up at about 70%.
In California, each county registrar has until December 8 to certify the election, but Roberts said a final Marin tally will be completed and released before then.
Roberts is planning for the required manual tally of at least 1% of ballots cast, which is expected to start prior to Thanksgiving. The audit will continue the following week until complete. The canvassing process is conducted weekdays 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and is open to the public. For more information, call the Elections Department at (415) 473-6456.
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