- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
Registrar of Voters Office issues update on ballots still to count; official canvass under way
Registrar Diane Fridley on Thursday issued her first post-election breakdown of the ballots that remain to be counted.
She and her staff are now in the 30-day official canvass period, which requires them to finish counting several thousand absentee and provisional ballots in order to certify the June 5 election results.
The tally on Thursday was as follows:
– Vote-by-mail, or VBM, ballots received by mail by Election Day: 2,324.
– VBM ballots postmarked on or before June 5 and received June 6: 739.
– Vote-by-mail ballots dropped off at the polls on Election Day: 2,190.
– Provisional ballots from the polls: 524.
– Conditional voter registration provisional ballots: 62.
– Vote-by-mail ballots that require further review for various reasons (including damage, such as tearing or bending): 199.
Those categories total 6,038 ballots, she said.
However, there was a change in election code that went into effect in January 2016 that impacted the deadline for elections officials to receive vote-by-mail ballots returned by mail, Fridley said.
As a result, Fridley said vote-by-mail ballots that are postmarked by the US Postal Service on or before Election Day shall be considered “timely cast” if the voter’s ballot is received by the voter’s elections official no later than three days after Election Day. In this case, that’s on Friday.
Fridley said more ballots are expected to come in on Friday, which will change that final tally.
Another delay in the process is that for any vote-by-mail ballots that were not signed when they were returned, Fridley’s office has to send them a notice. The voter then gets eight days from the election – until June 13 – to sign the ballot.
Fridley said her office will issue another update on the total number of ballots to be counted as well as a breakdown of ballots to be counted by unincorporated county and supervisorial Districts 2 and 3 when the information is available.
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