While Election Day has passed, the work is far from over for election workers in San Luis Obispo County, where many ballots still need to be processed and counted.
Erin Clausen, spokesperson for the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder's Office, said the next batch of results will be released on Thursday, June 4, by 5 p.m. This batch will cover mail-in ballots that arrived just before Election Day.
According to Clausen, this upcoming release could include anywhere between 15,000 and 20,000 votes.
"The first couple weeks of mail ballot voting were quiet and then we started to get an influx of ballots, right before Election Day," Clausen said. "So we have a number of those processed now and ready to count."
She also shared that the elections office received an estimated additional 20,000 vote-by-mail ballots on Election Day itself. These ballots won't be included in the June 4 release.
Gabriela Ugalde, Division Supervisor for the County Clerk-Recorder, explained the reason why the process takes some time.
"They need to be scanned, counted and signature checked," Ugalde said. "Once their signature is checked, then that's when we could process the ballots."
After June 4, the elections office will continue reporting results until the June 15 deadline, when counties are required under California law (Assembly Bill 5) to count and report most ballots.
The Santa Barbara County Elections Office plans to release its next set of results by 3 p.m. on Thursday.
