County clerk-recorder reports record voter participation
Submitted by the County Clerk-Recorder.
–The Official Canvass for the Nov. 6 Gubernatorial General Election has been completed and the election was certified by County Clerk-Recorder Tommy Gong Monday.
This election set many records for the County of San Luis Obispo: an unprecedented number of registered voters – 172,544 (shattering the previous record of 168,257 during the 2016 presidential); the highest percentage of voter participation during a Gubernatorial General election at 74.39-percent, well above the estimated 64-percent statewide turnout; a record-setting number of vote-by-mail ballots sent to voters at 130,848 (75.8-percent of registered voters).
As in past elections, those voters choosing to vote by mail outnumbered those who went to the polls on Election Day. Of those who voted, 97,096 voted by mail (75.65-percent), while 31,257 voted at the polls (24.35-percent). The final official results are posted at www.slovote.com. The final precinct by precinct results will be posted to this website as well.
The official canvass procedures include counting all vote-by-mail and provisional ballots turned in at the polls, balancing the number of voters who signed the precinct rosters to the number of ballots cast, and completing a 1-percent manual tally to ensure the voting machines counted ballots correctly. Additional steps required by new legislation include contacting vote-by-mail voters to remedy their unsigned ballot envelopes or whose signatures did not match their signatures on file, as well as the processing of provisional ballots cast by voters who voted a Conditional Voter Registration (aka Same Day Registration) ballot.
Several ballots cast by voters were not counted due to a variety of reasons: vote-by-mail or provisional ballots with signatures that don’t compare; provisional ballots cast by voters who were not registered to vote, or which were placed into the ballot box at polls; and two ballots cast by voters at a precinct in the City of Arroyo Grande that was issued incorrect ballots (in which case the votes were transferred onto the correct ballot type). The Clerk-Recorder’s Office also corrected an error for the Los Osos Community Services District directors contest.
