The San Benito County Department of Elections reported on Nov. 10 that 10,400 ballots remain to be processed, after 12,1856 were processed on Tuesday and counted among the “semi-official” election night results.
In a statement, the elections office said it “has a philosophy to get as much of the qualified ballots counted on election night. The election staff and volunteers work hard in the weeks leading up to and through election day to prepare and count as much as possible on election night.”
More than 72 percent of San Benito County voters do so by mail or are in a mail ballot-only precinct, elections officials said. Since many of these ballots arrive at the polls on election day, it often takes multiple days to get all of them processed.
“Every returned vote-by-mail ballot must have the voter’s signature verified, precinct sorted and the ballot is reviewed for electronic readability,” the elections office announcement stated. “This process can take several days and in some elections even weeks.”
The balance of 10,400 remaining to be processed includes 9,200 unprocessed vote-by-mail ballots, 1,000 provisional ballots and 200 damaged or unreadable ballots, officials reported. The next update of election results is scheduled for the evening of Monday, Nov. 14.
Voters with questions or concerns are encouraged to call the Department of Elections at 636-4016.
For more information on unprocessed ballots, click here.
To see if your ballot has been processed, visit the ballot status lookup page.