How to resolve AdBlock issue? Tuesday’s presidential election was unique primarily due to the impact of COVID-19, which had resulted in more than 22 million vote-by-mail ballots being issued statewide, including 37,717 issued to the registered voters in Lake County.
On Wednesday, an update on the preliminary count issued by Lake County Registrar Maria Valadez’s office showed that 11,157 ballots had been tallied as part of the initial count in the races for president, and state offices and propositions.
Based on past practice, once it has given preliminary reports on the count either by Election Night or the following day, the elections office doesn’t issue any additional updates on race counts until the election is certified in early December.
However, the registrar does report on unprocessed ballots early in the process, and that was the report Valadez issued on Thursday.
Valadez said that altogether her office has approximately 18,270 ballots still to count over the coming weeks, in addition to the more than 11,000 counted so far.
Those 18,270 ballots break down as follows:
– Vote-by-mail ballots received through Election Day, Nov. 3: 9,983.
– Vote-by-mail ballots received on Nov. 4: 232.
– Vote-by-mail ballots received on Nov. 5: 73.
– Vote-by-mail ballots dropped off at the polls on Election Day: 4,344.
– Provisional and conditional ballots voted at the polls on Election Day: 2,950.
– Provisional and conditional ballots voted at the Elections Office: 159.
– Vote-by-mail ballots that require further review for various reasons: 529.
That overall count is still subject to change in the coming weeks.
Normally, state election law allows ballots to be counted if they were postmarked on or before Election Day and arrived no later than three days after the date of the election.
However, a newly enacted state election law, Elections Code section 3020(d), changed the deadline for election officials to receive vote-by-mail ballots returned by mail for the Nov. 3, 2020, General Election only.
Valadez said that new law allows county elections officials to count a vote-by-mail ballot if it is postmarked on or before Election Day and delivered to the elections office by the US Postal Service or a private mail delivery company no later than 17 days after Election Day, or Nov. 20.
Based on the numbers provided so far by Valadez’s office, Lake County appears to be on track for a voter turnout of well over 70 percent.
Ongoing counts common following elections
Having large numbers of ballots still to count following elections, especially for key federal and state offices, is typical, not just in Lake but in other counties across the state and nation.
For comparison, for the Nov. 8, 2016, general election, the Lake County Registrar of Voters Office’s report on unprocessed ballots showed that it had 11,911 ballots remaining to count following Election Day, a number which included 1,497 provisionals – half of this year’s total – and 9,453 vote-by-mail ballots received either by mail, at the polls or the elections office by Election Day, about 5,000 less than this year.
The California Secretary of State’s Office on Thursday issued its reports on the estimated number of unprocessed ballots for the Nov. 3 General Election, reporting that there are 4,523,196 uncounted ballots statewide.
That breaks down as 4,079,126 vote-by-mail ballots, 68,619 provisionals, 285,993 conditional voter registration provisionals – a result of the “same day” voter registration process that’s new this year – and 89,458 ballots classified as “other.”
Overall, the total number of unprocessed ballots in California this year is only about 200,000 less than the number the state reported just after the Nov. 8, 2016, general election.
The biggest difference between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, when it comes to the state’s unprocessed ballot numbers, is that in 2016 vote-by-mail ballots totaled just over 3.1 million, compared to just over four million this year.
In 2016, there were more than one million provisional ballots, compared to 354,612 provisions – 68,619 regular provisionals and 285,993 conditional registration provisionals – this year.
The election count is considered preliminary until the official canvass is completed and the election certified in early December.
Valadez’s office has until Dec. 1 to report Lake County’s presidential election results to the Secretary of State’s Office, with a Dec. 4 deadline for state and local contests.
The state in turn will certify results by Dec. 11, three days before the Electoral College is due to meet.
Editor’s note: On Friday, the Registrar of Voters Office issued an updated report which increased the number of vote-by-mail ballots received through Election Day from 9,947 to 9,983. The overall number of ballots still to be counted in that revised report remained at 18,270, the same as in the initial report from Thursday.
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