Here’s what we will — and won’t — know on election night in SLO County
Gone are the days when everyone lined up at neighborhood polling stations to cast their votes.
At least 30% of San Luis Obispo County’s registered voters turned in their ballots before Election Day via mail or drop-off boxes, according to SLO County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano.
Other voters will pop into polling places or drop off their ballots on Tuesday ahead of the 8 p.m. deadline.
All ballots will be counted the same way at the SLO County Clerk-Recorder’s Office.
Here’s what we will — and won’t — know on election night in SLO County.
When will SLO County release election results?
Polling places are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday in SLO County.
When the polls close, county staff and volunteers will deliver ballots cast at the polls to the County Clerk-Recorder’s Office to be counted.
County staff have been counting mail-in ballots for two weeks as they arrive.
By Monday morning, the county had received more than 54,000 ballots — which means about 30% of SLO County voters had cast their ballots before Election Day, Cano told The Tribune.
At 8 p.m. Tuesday, the county will release a tally of all mail-in ballots counted before Election Day on its website.
County staff will then immediately begin counting all ballots cast at the polls on Tuesday.
The county will release a report with an updated tally every two hours, Cano said.
Tallying up ballots from the polls will take hours. During the June primary, Cano and her colleagues worked until 2:45 a.m. on the morning after Election Day, she said.
“We don’t leave until they are all done,” Cano said.
The county will release unofficial election results Tuesday night that include ballots cast on or before Election Day.
By Thursday, county staff will start counting ballots received in the mail after Election Day, Cano said.
The Elections Office will post an unofficial ballot-count update each day on its website until the counting is completed. It has 30 days to certify the election and send official results to the California Secretary of State.
Final results will be released in a few weeks when the county finishes tallying mail-in ballots.
The Secretary of State’s Office will post official results by Dec. 16 on its website, the Sacramento Bee reported.
What happens to mail-in ballots?
When a mail-in ballot arrives at the SLO County Elections Office, it’s scanned by a machine to check if the signature on the outside of the envelope matches the voter’s records. If the signature matches, the ballot is sent to another machine that slices the envelope open.
The ballot then heads to the processing board, where it’s removed from its envelope.
Staff then check the ballot for damage or other identifying marks, such as coffee stains or someone’s initials in the margins.
Clean ballots are then sent to a machine to be counted. The machine flags ballots with write-in candidates, and staff check to see if they’re included on the Secretary of State’s list of qualified write-in candidates.
People often write in their own candidates, Cano said, noting that Mickey Mouse is a popular option every year.
The machine also notifies staff if the bubble next to a candidate’s name doesn’t have enough ink — which can happen if people use check-marks to indicate their vote.
Staff check these ballots to determine the intent of the voter. If the voter used check marks for all of the candidates, staff will assume that the voter intended to select those candidates, Cano said.
Once the ballots are counted, they’re sealed into a box and “the life of the ballot is over,” Cano said.
This story was originally published November 8, 2022 at 12:48 PM.
