Nearly 69,000 ballots still to be counted in SLO County. When will next results update be?
With tens of thousands of votes left to count and an unusually high number of provisional ballots cast, this election season is turning out to be a heavier lift than usual for the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder’s Office.
Two days after voting ended on Nov. 5, the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder’s Office reported it still has an estimated 68,992 ballots left to get through before it can certify the results of the election.
With 82,548 ballots already counted as of noon on Wednesday, that brings the total number of votes received in SLO County so far up to more than 151,000 in the 2024 general election.
More votes may still be on their way, too. The Clerk-Recorder’s Office can still receive mail-in ballots until Nov. 12 and SLO County ballots accidentally received by other counties until Nov. 13.
Voters can expect another update on election results by 5 p.m. on Friday, Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano said.
After that, the Clerk-Recorder’s Office expects to tabulate at least once a week until every eligible ballot has been counted. A notice will be added to the Clerk-Recorder homepage each day that counting occurs, the office said in a news release.
What is status of closest SLO County races?
Multiple races remained neck-and-neck as votes continue to be counted.
In Atascadero, Jodi Taylor tailed by just 82 votes for a seat on the school board while the three front-runners were all but tied, and Tori Keen was less than 2 percentage points behind Mark Dariz for a seat on City Council as of noon Wednesday.
In Paso Robles, Kris Beal led Sharon Roden by a mere 16 votes for the District 1 City Council seat while two mayoral candidates in Grover Beach, Kassi Dee and Debbie Peterson, were separated by a margin of only 117 votes, with Dee slightly in the lead.
The Clerk-Recorder’s Office has until Dec. 3 to certify its election results, but Cano said her office has less time than usual to canvass.
Normally, SLO County has 30 days to certify its elections, but that time frame is reduced to 28 days for a presidential year. However, that also includes holidays and weekends, Cano said.
“We have three holidays this month and four weekends, so really, all in all, I’ve got about 16 days to certify,” Cano said.
Over the next month, the elections office will verify and tabulate the more than 151,000 ballots received.
Ballots are processed and tabulated in order according to the date received, and they are not separated or prioritized based on district or contest, the news release said.
In addition, the elections office must also sort and forward out-of-county ballots cast in SLO County to the appropriate places, process absentee ballots from oversees voters and adjudicate every ballot flagged for having a write-in, overvote or stray marking.
‘Unprecedented’ number of provisional voters could slow count
With an “unprecedented” number of provisional voters this election, Cano said the ballot counting process may take longer and will require more man-power than previous years.
Provisional ballots are cast by voters who are unregistered or unverified in to vote in SLO County on Election Day. On Thursday, the elections office reported having nearly 5,500 provisional ballots yet to be processed.
Each provisional ballot must be individually researched by the elections team before they can determine the eligibility of the voter’s registration and count their votes.
“There were an unprecedented number of these cast during this election, many by Cal Poly students voting for the first time or voting for the first time in SLO County,” Cano said in the release. “The volume of provisional ballots means that elections staff will be dedicating much of the canvass time to confirming those voters’ registrations and eligibility.”
Cano said because they will be dealing with confidential voter registration, only about three members of the full-time elections staff are qualified to verify thousands of provisional ballots.
In addition, the elections office will conduct a 1% manual tally on Wednesday as required by state law to validate the accuracy of the results.
During the manual tally, the Clerk-Recorder will randomly select a representative pool of 1% of the ballots cast at the polls and 1% the of vote-by-mail ballots that have been counted at that point. Election staff will compare a hand count of those ballots to a machine count of the same ballots generated by the Dominion Voting Systems tabulators.
The 1% manual tally and weekly tabulation of votes are both open to the public for viewing.
This story was originally published November 7, 2024 at 4:41 PM.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that the Clerk-Recorder’s Office can still receive mail-in ballots until Nov. 12 and SLO County ballots accidentally received by other counties until Nov. 13.
