SLO County is closing in on final election results. Here’s how many ballots are left to count
San Luis Obispo County’s elections office released its second-to-last batch of results Wednesday afternoon, leaving only about 4,000 ballots still to be counted before the results of the election have to be finalized next week.
As of 1:40 p.m., the county Clerk-Recorder’s Office had counted 2,358 ballots since the previous ballot drop on Saturday, bringing the near-grand total tally to 150,106 ballots tabulated and 3,916 more to go.
At the eleventh hour, a number of tight races that have been in the spotlight this election remained as close as ever.
The races for Grover Beach mayor, Paso Robles City Council, Lucia Mar Unified School District, Atascadero City Council and school board were close enough to still change even between the Wednesday ballot drop and the final results on Dec. 3.
In Paso Robles, Kris Beal stayed steadily up by 125 votes over Sharon Roden in the District 1 City Council race, while Steve Gregory led by 306 votes over Michael Rivera in District 3.
In Atascadero, Seth Peek kept his lead, followed by Mark Dariz, in the race for two City Council seats. Tori Keen stayed well behind in third, trailing by 720 votes, on par with the 726-vote gap in the previous count.
As for the city’s school board, Joey Arnold, Corinne Kuhnle and Jodi Taylor continued to hold the winning spots with Veronica DeCoster now trailing Taylor by 197 votes, compared to 192 in the last count.
Down south, Mike Fuller grew his lead from 60 votes on Saturday to 68 in the race for the Lucia Mar school district’s Trustee Area 4 seat.
In Grover Beach, Kassi Dee gained slightly more ground over Debbie Peterson in the race for mayor, marginally widening her lead to 488 votes, up from from 477 in the last count.
Finally, a Lucia Mar school district bond finally surpassed the 55% threshold to pass for the first time in this year’s vote count. Templeton’s school bond also held onto its 55.6% approval vote, which made it over the threshold during the last ballot drop. Atascadero’s was also headed to victory.
This year’s post-election canvass is taking longer than usual due to a higher volume of mail-in and provisional ballots than ever before, each of which requires an extensive verification process, Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano said.
The elections office also received more than 140,000 mailed ballots this election, making up 95% of the ballots counted so far, Clerk-Recorder’s Officer public information officers Erin Clausen told The Tribune.
Wednesday’s ballot drop was the last update before the final certified election results are released on Dec. 3.
The final stretch of ballot counting until then will be focused on verifying and counting provisional ballots and those with cured signatures — which have been corrected by the voters who cast those ballots, Clausen said.
Here are the latest numbers for local races for city councils, mayors, school boards and more.
SLO County mayoral and city council races
Front-runners for the number of seats available are in bold.
Paso Robles City Council
District 1 seat:
- Kris Beal, 43.8%
- Sharon Roden, 39.3%
- Linda George, 16.8%
District 3 seat:
- Steve Gregory, 43.5%
- Michael Rivera, 35.5%
- Jeff Carr, 21%
Atascadero City Council
- Seth Peek, 35.2%
- Mark Dariz, 34.1%
- Tori Keen, 30.8%
Grover Beach mayor
- Kassi Dee, 43.4%
- Debbie Peterson, 34.9%
- Robert Robert, 21.7%
Grover Beach City Council
District 3 seat:
- Kathy McCorry, 53.1%
- Marsha Bolyanatz, 46.9%
District 2 recall of Councilmember Dan Rushing:
- Yes, 55.2%
- No, 44.9%
Arroyo Grande mayor
- Caren Ray Russom, 64.3%
- Gaea Powell, 35.8%
Arroyo Grande City Council
District 3 seat:
- Jamie Maraviglia, 56.3%
- Marlea Harmon, 43.7%
Pismo Beach mayor
- Ed Waage, 64.6%
- Kevin Kreowski, 35.4%
Pismo Beach City Council
- Scott Newton, 48.3%
- Marcia Guthrie, 36.5%
- Gianni Scangarello, 15.2%
San Luis Obispo mayor
- Erica Stewart, 84.9%
- Donald Hedrick, 15.1%
San Luis Obispo City Council
- Jan Marx, 37.6%
- Mike Boswell, 34.3%
- John Drake, 17.9%
- Felicia Lewis, 10.3%
School board results
Front-runners for the number of seats available in bold.
Atascadero school board
- Joey Arnold, 23%
- Corinne Kuhnle, 20.8%
- Jodi Taylor, 20.1%
- Veronica DeCoster, 19.6%
- Matt Pennon, 16.6%
Paso Robles school board
Trustee Area 3 seat:
- Nathan Williams, 63%
- Hunter Breese, 37%
Trustee Area 5 seat:
- Laurene McCoy, 55%
- Tim Gearhart, 45%
Trustee Area 6 seat:
- Leo Castillo, 52.7%
- Adelita Hiteshew, 47.3%
Trustee Area 7 seat:
- Kenney Enney, 60.2%
- Tracy Dauterman, 39.8%
Templeton school board
- Matt Allison, 27.7%
- Ted Dubost, 27.6%
- Cheryl Parks, 26.6%
- Jason Tesarz, 18.1%
San Luis Coastal school board
- Erica Flores Baltodano, 71.9%
- Eve Hinton, 28.2%
Cayucos Elementary school board
Trustee Area 4
- Peter Schuler, 57%
- Scott Smith, 43%
Trustee Area 5
- Dan Puett, 76.3%
- Susan Brownell, 23.7%
Lucia Mar school board
Trustee Area 1
- Don Stewart, 53.8%
- Paul Bischoff, 46.2%
Trustee Area 3
- Dee Santos, 53.1%
- Paul Hively, 46.9%
Trustee Area 4
- Mike Fuller, 50.5%
- Vicki Meagher, 49.5%
Ballot measures
Paso Robles Measure I-24, needs majority vote to pass:
- Yes, 54.4%
- No, 45.6%
Pismo Beach Measure F-24, needs majority vote to pass:
- Yes, 62.5%
- No, 37.5%
Arroyo Grande Measure E-24, needs majority vote to pass:
- Yes, 64.9%
- No, 35.1%
Morro Bay Measure A-24, needs majority vote to pass:
- Yes, 59.9%
- No, 40.2%
Grover Beach Measure G-24, needs majority vote to pass:
- Yes, 64.7%
- No, 35.4%
Atascadero Measure L-24, needs majority vote to pass:
- Yes, 70.6%
- No, 29.5%
Atascadero Measure M-24, needs majority vote to pass:
- Yes, 49%
No, 51%
Atascadero School District Measure B-24, needs 55% to pass:
- Yes, 56.4%
- No, 43.6%
Lucia Mar School District Measure H-24, needs 55% to pass:
- Yes, 55.1%
- No, 44.9%
Templeton School District Measure D-24, needs 55% to pass:
- Yes, 55.6%
- No, 45.4%
Cambria Community Healthcare District’s Measure C-24, needs a two-thirds vote and the simultaneous approval of Proposition 5 to pass:
- Yes, 76.8%
- No, 23.2%
Latest results from CSDs and Port San Luis Harbor District
Oceano Community Services District
Division 1 seat:
- Linda Austin, 78.7%
- Angela Smith, 21.3%
Division 5 seat:
- Shirley Gibson, 57.7%
- Charles Varni, 42.3%
Nipomo Community Services District
- John Joyce, 51.5%
- Philip Henry, 37.9%
- James Wejrowki, 10.6%
Port San Luis Harbor District
- Richard Scangarello, 60.6%
- Katie Lichtig, 39.4%
Who won state races?
Congress
District 19
- Jimmy Panetta, 69.3%
- Jason Anderson, 30.7%
District 24
- Salud Carbajal, 62.7%
- Thomas Cole, 37.3%
State Senate
District 17
- John Laird, 65.0%
- Tony Virrueta, 35.0%
District 21
- Monique Limon, 63.3%
- Elijack Mack, 36.7%
State Assembly
District 30
- Dawn Addis, 62.4%
- Dalila Epperson, 37.6%
District 37
- Gregg Hart, 60.8%
- Sari Domingues, 39.2%
Did SLO County voters favor Harris or Trump?
Contrary to the elections’ nationwide results, San Luis Obispo County voters significantly favored Vice President Kamala Harris over former and future President Donald Trump, according to the vote count.
As of the Wednesday drop, 53.9% of ballots counted were cast for Harris, compared to Trump’s 43.0%.
The totals were pretty close 2020, when President Joe Biden took home 55.3% of the San Luis Obispo County vote, while Trump garnered 42.2%.
This story was originally published November 27, 2024 at 3:28 PM with the headline "SLO County is closing in on final election results. Here’s how many ballots are left to count."
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to reflect that the elections office has received more than 140,000 mailed ballots this election so far, that it will release another round of election results on Wednesday and once more on Dec. 3 for the final certified results.
