The fate of a number local races hangs in the balance as the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters continues to tabulate absentee ballots returned to polling places on Election Day.
Who will serve on the Los Altos School District Board of Trustees and whether the district’s Measure N bond passes are yet to be determined.
County Registrar Shannon Bushey said the office is currently processing and counting an estimated 150,000 absentee ballots returned through Nov. 4. The results the office published 4 a.m. Nov. 5 included the 81,000 votes cast at polling places on Election Day.
At 5 p.m. Nov. 5, the registrar released results for 16,000 absentee ballots, but the county still has another 105,000-135,000 absentee ballots to process.
Counting absentee ballots, which arrive in sealed envelopes, is a labor-intensive process. Bushey said the ballots first must be sorted by precinct and go through a sorting machine that tallies them and captures voters’ signatures. The registrar’s office staff must compare the signatures to ensure that they match for approval, and then the staff open the envelopes and prep the ballots for processing the vote counts.
Bushey said the first day of counting absentee ballots includes more preparation and sorting, prompting the low-results count of only 16,000 ballots processed. She estimates that the office will complete counting absentee ballots by Saturday but will work Sunday if necessary.
The Registrar of Voters’ website is scheduled to update totals at 5 p.m. each day.
After absentee ballots are counted, the Registrar of Voters must process the 14,000 provisional ballots cast on Election Day, which, according to Bushey, would take at least a week.
All election results will not be certified officially until Dec. 2.
For updates, visit sccgov.org and click “Election Results.”
