47,000 people have voted in SLO County so far. What does that mean for Election Night?
More than a quarter of registered voters have already returned their mail-in ballots to the San Luis Obispo County Elections Office — a huge change from the usual amount at this point in an election.
And with more than two weeks still to go, that number shows no signs of slowing.
“It’s definitely been a shot in the arm,” County Clerk-Recorder Tommy Gong told The Tribune in a phone interview.
Gong said his office has been practically swimming in the accumulated ballot envelopes over the past week as more and more are brought in to be counted.
His office began its first official count of the ballots on Thursday, and the final tally at the end of the day — 47,236 — represented more than a quarter of the the 182,804 voters currently registered in San Luis Obispo County.
Gong said the 19 drop boxes around the county have been heavily used already, with the workers at those stations calling over the weekend to report the boxes were full multiple times.
At the box near his own office on Monterey Street in San Luis Obispo, Gong said that after emptying it late in the day, it will be full of ballots once they check it again in the morning.
“It is an election for the ages,” Gong said.
That echoes a statewide trend toward early voting.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Alex Padilla reported that more than 1.5 million California voters have already turned in their ballots, a “massive increase over the approximately 150,000 ballots returned at this same point in the 2016 General Election.”
“Californians are voting early in historic numbers,” Padilla said in a news release. “We knew the COVID-19 pandemic would pose significant challenges, but elections officials have prepared and voters have responded. More Californians voting early will mean a safer Election Day for everyone — voters, poll workers, and elections officials alike. By voting early, you help preserve in-person voting for those who need it — including our neighbors with disabilities, those who need language assistance, or those who need access to Same Day Voter Registration.”
If the trend continues, Gong said he expects Election Night in SLO County to look very different.
“If we go this same clip every week, we will have a large number of 8 p.m. results Election Night,” Gong said. “We won’t be so far behind if you have a light turnout at the beginning of the day.”
Gong said this means that the first round of results typically released at 8 p.m. will include a larger portion of the actual voting population, and will likely be more indicative of the final results as a whole.
Simple explanation: We might know much sooner in the night which candidates are likely heading toward victories.
Because mail-in ballots can be accepted as long as they are postmarked on Election Day and provisional ballots from people who register on Election Day must also be processed, there may still be some delay in the final official tally for close races, however.
In the lead-up to Election Day, though, Gong and his office are frantically working to keep up with the flood of ballots so far ahead of schedule.
Gong said he expected that by the end of Friday, his office will have received more than 50,000 returned vote-by-mail ballots.
“It is all coming together,” Gong said. “I can see it all coming together.”
How to return your mail-in ballot
If you have not done so already, you can return your SLO County ballot a number of ways.
The first option is to mail it back at the post office. That’s even easier this year because the postage is covered by the county and no stamp is needed.
You can also drop it off at one of the 19 official ballot boxes throughout San Luis Obispo County, or at the two open Voter Service Centers at 1055 Monterey St. in San Luis Obispo and 6565 Capistrano in Atascadero. Those locations are also already open for in-person voting.
Starting on Oct. 31, you can also drop your ballot off at 21 additional Voter Service Centers. There you can also vote in person, request a provisional ballot or even get registered.
A Tribune map of those locations is available at https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/politics-government/election/voter-guide/article246277175.html.
For more information on how to vote in SLO County, check out our Voting 101 Guide here: https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/politics-government/election/article245992190.html.
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