SLO County has thousands of ballots still to count. Here’s how many are left
The San Luis Obispo County Elections Office has an estimated 60,790 ballots left to count, according to a county report.
That’s more than has already been counted so far and includes 59,812 vote-by-mail ballots, as well as 927 provisional ballots and 51 “election night non-processed ballots,” the report said.
As of 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, county staff had tallied 58,096 ballots — including ballots cast at the polls on Tuesday and received by mail before Election Day.
On Wednesday, San Luis Obispo County Clerk Recorder Elaina Cano said she expected voter participation to be lower than usual.
Based on current estimates, however, voter turnout for the midterm election could reach 65.2% with 118,886 total ballots cast.
There are a total of 182,291 registered voters in SLO County.
That’s a lower turnout than the 2018 midterm election, when SLO County’s voter participation rate reached 74.4%, but higher than the 2014 midterm, which had a 58.4% participation rate.
According to the county, four types of ballots remain to be counted over the coming weeks:
- Last-minute vote-by-mail ballots that arrived the day before or on Election Day by mail, returned at a polling place or deposited in a drop box;
- Vote-by-mail ballots postmarked by Election Day and received no later than seven days after Nov. 8;
- Ballots with missing or mismatched signatures that must be verified; and
- Provisional ballots that must be researched and verified.
SLO County will have its official election results by Dec. 8, the deadline for certifying the election.
The Elections Office is scheduled to count ballots again on Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and release another ballot count report that day at about 5 p.m.
This story was originally published November 10, 2022 at 5:44 PM.
