Once all of the ballots are mailed in, placed in a drop box or cast in-person for California’s 2024 General Election, the attention will turn to the results.
But how quickly will those be made public? And will they tell us the outcome of the races right away?
Election officials and experts say the results will arrive in three separate waves on election night, with the first being released shortly after the polls close at 8 p.m. on Nov. 5.
The first wave will consist of results from the early-arriving vote-by-mail ballots, the ones that arrived a few days — or weeks — before the election, according to Sacramento County elections officials.
Early results will show up on the California Secretary of State’s website. But they won’t necessarily be enough to determine the outcome of close races.
County elections staff are allowed to pre-process mail ballots that arrive in their offices before Election Day.
“They all take advantage of that opportunity to get as many of those ballots processed and signatures verified and envelopes opened and ballots ready to tabulate as they can,” Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, told CapRadio in 2022.
Once those steps are complete and polls close at 8 p.m., counties tally the ballots using high-speed scanning machines. That allows them to disseminate the early, partial results within minutes or seconds, she added.
The second and third wave of results will be released likely by about 10 p.m. and midnight on election night. Those will be from ballots cast in-person on election day at voting sites.
After those three batches are published, some candidates with large leads might declare victory. But the outcome of tight races might not be known for days or weeks as the remaining mail ballots arrive at election offices.
In recent years, California has largely shifted away from in-person voting. More than 88% of ballots cast in the state’s March primary election, for example, were by mail. Back in 2004, only one-third of the ballots were cast by mail.
Alexander said the shift to mail ballots offers greater convenience for voters, but also delays results because election staff must spend more time verifying signatures and handling late-arriving ballots.
“We have this election night tradition of parties and news coverage and excitement,” Alexander said. “That tradition needs to be adjusted because we no longer have election day and election night. We have ballot counting month.”
To make counting a bit faster on election night, some California counties have created a “sign, scan and go” process. It allows vote centers to scan and immediately count mail ballots hand-delivered by voters instead of waiting to tabulate those results later.
“You can just open up that envelope and put the ballot right into the scanner there,” explained Ryan Ronco, Placer County’s registrar of voters. “You get the satisfaction of seeing your ballot counted in front of you at the vote center. And your ballot is going to be part of that 8 p.m. or election night final tally. And it will reduce the number of ballots that we have to count post-election. So it’s a win, win, win really.”
Placer County is one of the few in the Sacramento region to offer the service. It is not available in Sacramento or Yolo counties.
But even with new services like “sign, scan and go,” counting all of California’s ballots remains a slow process. Election month is made longer by the fact that state law requires counties to count all mail ballots that arrive up to seven days after the polls close as long as they are postmarked no later than 8 p.m. on Nov. 5.
County election officials must verify results 30 days after the election. The Secretary of State’s office must certify the election eight days later.
The Secretary of State’s office maintains this list of voting locations to help you find your closest polling place. All voting locations will be open on election day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Check out CapRadio’s Sacramento 2024 General Election voting guide for more information about the Nov. 5 election.
Editor’s note: This story was originally published on Nov. 8, 2022. It has been updated to reflect the details of the 2024 General Election.
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