LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The official canvass for Tuesday's general election is under way, as election officials in Lake County and across the state work to count remaining absentee and provisional ballots.

While officials reported preliminary results from Tuesday, the counts won't be final until the official canvass is completed, according to Lake County Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley.

In addition to preliminary precinct counts, on election night Fridley said her office processed and counted vote-by-mail – or absentee – ballots received by her office by Oct. 31.

In the 28-day canvass period, Fridley said she and her staff have a total of 5,536 absentee and provisional ballots yet to count.

That's compared to the approximately 6,053 provisional and absentee ballots that still remained to be counted after the June primary, as Lake County News has reported.

The breakdown of the Lake County ballots still to be counted during the general election canvass is as follows, according to Fridley:

– Vote-by-mail ballots returned by mail and received on Nov. 3 and 4: 1,545.
– Vote-by-mail ballots returned by mail from military and overseas voters: 27.
– Vote-by-mail ballots received at our counter on Nov. 3 and 4: 341.
– Vote-by-mail ballots dropped off at the polls on Election Day: 2,686.
– Provisional ballots voted at the polls: 678.
– Provisional ballots voted at the Registrar of Voters Office: 259.

Regarding reasons for provisional voting, Fridley explained that such ballots are used in cases where the residential address a voter provides does not match his or her voter record due to moving within
Lake County; a voter was issued a vote-by-mail ballot but did not vote the issued ballot because it was misplaced or the ballot was never received by mail; or the voter did not vote at his or her assigned voting precinct.

When eligibility is determined by staff, provisional ballots will be entirely counted, partially counted or not counted, Fridley said.

Fridley said that after the election has been certified, provisional voters can call the Registrar of Voters Office at 707-263-2372 to find out if their vote was counted and if not, why it was not counted.

Statewide, a total of 1,705,281 ballots remain to be counted during the official canvass, according to Secretary of State Debra Bowen's office.

“Now that voting by mail is the most popular way to vote in California, county elections officials generally need the full month to verify voter records and tally all valid ballots,” said Bowen, California’s chief elections official. “Every valid ballot returned to county elections officials by 8 p.m. on election day is counted in every election, regardless of the margin in any particular contest.”

While several small counties like Alpine, Glenn, Plumas and Sierra are reported to be finished with the canvass, remaining counties have as few as 37 ballots to process – as in the case of Modoc – to as many as 301,435 in Los Angeles County, based on the unprocessed ballot count Bowen's office provided.

Bowen said county elections officials have a number of tasks to complete as part of the official canvass.

Those include remaking ballots that machines cannot tabulate because of wrinkles, smudges or other damage; hand-counting votes for qualified write-in candidates; ensuring signatures on each vote-by-mail ballot envelope matches the signature on the voter’s original voter registration application; researching all voters who cast provisional ballots to ensure each person was registered to vote and did not vote more than once; and sorting all vote-by-mail ballots by precinct so they can be manually audited.

Elections officials also must manually audit 100 percent of the ballots from 1 percent of the precincts in the county to ensure the results are accurate and manually audit 100 percent of the voter verified paper audit trail to ensure votes cast on direct recording electronic machines were tabulated accurately, Bowen said.

There there is the required auditing of all materials returned from polling places to ensure all ballots – voted, unvoted, spoiled, provisional, vote-by-mail, surrendered vote-by-mail – are accounted for, along with auditing all voting equipment to ensure it was properly secured and was not tampered with, according to Bowen.

Bowen said county elections officials have until Dec. 2 to ensure every eligible ballot is counted accurately and certify final election results to her office.

In turn, Bowen said she has until Dec. 12 to review the materials, resolve any reporting discrepancies and compile the 58 county reports for complete election results.

Once Fridley is done with her work, she will submit the canvass to the Board of Supervisors in early December, at which point the board will vote to certify the final results.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.