The San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder reports more people voted in the June primary election compared to four years ago. Simultaneously, the office also recorded a significant increase in ballots that couldn't be counted due to late arrivals.
County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano said voter turnout reached just over 55 percent, six percentage points higher than the last gubernatorial primary in 2022, when turnout was a little over 48 percent.
More than 90,000 mail-in ballots were processed by the June 15 deadline. California now requires counties to count and report most ballots 13 days after an election. The extra time allowed the election's office to try to count ballots from voters who needed to fix a missing or mismatched signature on their return envelope.
"We are required by law that any time there is a discrepancy in a signature that we do try to reach out to those voters," Cano said.
Despite the higher turnout, 2,905 ballots were recorded as arriving too late, representing about 1.5% of registered voters countywide. Compare that to the November 2024 presidential general election, which saw only 261 late ballots, followed by the November 2025 special election, which had 1,821 late ballots.
SLO County Deputy Director Registrar Penny Boyd attributed the increase partly to changes in postal service operations.
"The county's mail processing hub is now in Goleta, more than 50 miles away. That means ballots mailed on Election Day likely won't get postmarked until the next day," Boyd said.
Officials said many voters waited until Election Day or just before to submit their ballots.
Cal Poly student Kat Griswold said the information about postal delays should be more widely shared.
"I have voted by mail in the past, and I found that to be a pretty efficient process, but I've never waited till the last day to do it," Griswold said. "I think knowing that now, I would probably choose to do it in person, but also I definitely think that information needs to be more widespread."
To ensure mail ballots arrive on time, the clerk-recorder's office advises voters to mail ballots seven to 10 business days before Election Day.
In Santa Barbara County, the election office reports just over 2,300 ballots arrived too late to be counted. Election results in Santa Barbara County are expected to be certified on Friday.
San Luis Obispo County certified results on Thursday.
