Election officials in Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado and Yolo counties will tabulate hundreds of thousands of California ballots starting Tuesday evening in what appears to be a too-close election — one that will result in Donald Trump’s return as president of the United States, or ushering in Vice President Kamala Harris as the first female president in American history.
But mapping so many ballots – and doing so accurately – is not an instant achievement.
It can take weeks to count each ballot, especially mail-in ballots, which Californians are allowed to mail in on Election Day and will be counted as long as they arrive at their county elections office within seven days of Nov. 1. 5.
And thanks to a new law, the election results won’t be certified until December 3.
Voters will receive plenty of updates in the meantime. Here’s what information voters can expect on election night.
How long does it take to count ballots in California?
Counting ballots is one task; certifying them is another task.
A law that Governor Gavin Newsom signed in October stipulates that counties cannot certify election results until 28 days after the election, meaning all election results will be certified on or after December 3.
Counting counties in the Sacramento region usually takes three to four weeks. There are a number of factors that go into counting, and the popularity of absentee voting is one. Hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots mean hundreds of thousands of signatures must be processed and verified before the ballot is even opened.
Voters also submit ballots by mail on Election Day, rather than mailing them in or dropping them off early, which can slow down the process.
All four provinces participate in the Voters Choice Act (VCA) election model, which could promote a faster count.
This means that voting centers will be set up in counties days before Election Day so that voters can return their ballots early. This helps county election officials process ballots earlier so all the work doesn’t fall on election night.
The VCA model, championed by former Secretary of State and current Senator Alex Padilla, is also intended to increase voting accessibility and participation.
When it comes to counting ballots, each county in the region has its own mitigating factors to consider.
In Yolo County, for example, there are thousands of UC Davis students who are registered to vote across the state but end up leaving their ballots in county drop boxes whether they are registered in Yolo County or not.
Jesse Salinas, Yolo County’s registrar of voters, said election officials had to send ballots to 38 different counties a year after Election Day because so many students not registered in Yolo had dropped their ballots in the campus drop box. Many students also vote on Election Day with same-day registration; processing these conditional moods takes longer.
In El Dorado and Placer counties — both of which share a border with the Nevada state line through national forests — election officials also have to contend with the elements in a vast region of rural communities. Placer County has seen snowstorms the past two election nights.
How long it takes to tabulate all the ballots depends on all of these circumstances, said Stacy Robinson, public information assistant at Placer’s elections office.
“It depends on voter turnout, it depends on in-person voting, and it depends on how quickly those trucks (the ballots) can get down the hill.”
What information will we have on election night?
Polls in California close at 8 p.m., and election offices in Sacramento, Yolo, El Dorado and Placer counties are prepared to announce their first set of results at 8:15 p.m.
The first drop represents the mail-in ballots that counties received at drop boxes and polling places in the days and weeks leading up to the election.
The second, third and possibly fourth results, which will take place on election night between 9pm and 1am the following morning, will represent those who voted in person. Election officials will not leave until every in-person ballot has been tabulated at the voting center.
After election night, more results will drop twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday afternoons, until all ballots are counted and certified in early December.
How many people have voted so far?
Election officials in the Sacramento region say turnout could be the highest this year. This is common in presidential election years, which boost turnout – but there are other factors as well.
In Yolo County, West Sacramento’s most populous towns and cities, Davis, Woodland and Winters all have a local measure on the ballot that will bring voters to the polls, according to Jesse Salinas, the county’s registrar of voters.
Last Friday morning, the county received more than 40,000 ballots in the mail, out of 118,000 registered voters.
“That’s a pretty big number,” Salinas said. “We have had a consistent flow of people into the voting centers, and we are already at a third of the voters who have cast their ballots.”
In El Dorado County, Clerk Bill O’Neill said his office has received 42% of registered voter ballots, or 57,757 so far.
In Sacramento there are 889,465 registered voters, and 261,869 have already submitted their ballots for tabulation.
Placer County is seeing similarly high early turnout. So far, more than 42% of the county’s 286,115 registered voters have already submitted their ballots. Robinson attributes this rise to the new ‘sign, scan and go’ process.
If a voter in Placer wants to drop off their mail-in ballot at a voting center instead of mailing it in, the “sign, scan and go” process allows them to open their ballot with an election official and have it immediately to place. the ballot paper in the scanning machine. This way they can see in real time that their ballot is being counted. That also means their votes will be part of the Election Day count.
For every person who walks into the voting center and votes the traditional way — picking up a ballot, filling it out and dropping it off — six are using the “sign, scan and go” method, Robinson said.
“It’s like an express avenue,” she said. “People can watch their ballot being counted right before their eyes, and their ballot will be part of the results on election night. This takes away a lot of concerns.”
