Elections Office: nearly 20,000 ballots still to be counted

Updated Nov. 12, 10:16 p.m.–
Following a close race, or just want to know which ballots are left to be counted?

The Sacramento County Registrar of Voters office estimates it still has around 19,000 unprocessed vote-by-mail and provisional ballots left to count — with additional votes possibly swinging the final outcome for close races like San Juan Unified School District’s board election, where Michael McKibbin currently holds less than a one percent lead over Michael Miller.

Understanding the vote-count process:

Numbers released on election night are part of what’s called a “semifinal official canvass,” and include only “tallying of early-returned vote-by-mail ballots,” as well as any ballots cast in-person at a voting precinct, according to the California Secretary of State’s (SOS) website. Legally, officials can begin counting early-returned ballots seven days prior to the election.

Following this initial canvass, an “official canvass” must be completed within 28 days of the close of the election, during which election officials will process and count provisional ballots cast on election day, as well as any valid vote-by-mail ballots that were received on election day — or ones received prior to election day, but not counted in time to be included in the initial canvass.

The numbers of additional ballots counted after election night can be significant, as one precinct in Citrus Heights reported 201 ballots cast in-person at the polls on November 4, and 107 vote-by-mail ballots dropped off.

Statewide, ballots not included in the semifinal election-night results can be as many as 500,000 to 1,000,000, according to the SOS website.

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More information about the vote-counting process in California can be found out: http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/official-canvass.htm