Body of News Release
Marin County, CA – Staff members from the Marin County Elections Department are working as quickly as possible to process results from the June 2 Statewide Direct Primary, prioritizing accuracy as they work through the exceptionally heavy return of ballots on Election Day.
Staff worked through the weekend before Election Day and has been putting in long hours since then to get results out quickly while keeping standards high. Staff will again be working through the upcoming weekend to continue processing remaining ballots.
An updated online tally was posted at 3 PM Thursday, June 4. Dates and times for additional updates will be listed at MarinVotes.org.
Providing a rough estimate, Registrar of Voters Natalie Adona said the department received in the neighborhood of 90,000 ballots the day before and on Election Day, bringing overall turnout close to 80% of registered voters. Because a large volume of mail ballots arrived within a short timeframe, early updates may be slower than the public expects. This is because processing a mailed ballot requires multiple steps before ballots can be counted.
Approximately 6,500 voters cast ballots in person at the County’s vote centers during the voting period, and about 127,500 people voted by mail or provisionally. Adona estimated another 91,200 ballots remained to be counted as of June 5.
With each received ballot, the Elections staff verifies that a voter has not voted more than once in the election and compares the envelope signature with the one that is on file. Only then can the election worker remove the ballot from the envelope and prepare it for tabulation.
"With a large number of mail ballots to process, we're working carefully to ensure that every vote is counted accurately,” Adona said. “We want to be sure we get it right and thank the public for voting, and for their patience."
Over 35,000 ballots were received at the Civic Center and counted by 8 PM on Election Day, including vote-by-mail and early voting ballots. Mailed ballots may continue to be received up to seven days after the election, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.
Voters whose ballots were challenged due to mismatched or missing signatures have until 5 PM on Wednesday, June 24, to address the issue and still have their ballots counted. Forms for this purpose can be found at MarinVotes.org.
By law, the soonest date that the Elections Department may certify and report final election results to the Secretary of State is Friday, June 26. The Elections Department’s new online ballot returns dashboard provides nightly updates broken down by date, party, and source (in-person or vote-by-mail).