Today’s Election Day — but when will we know who wins?
By Debra Moore
There were 13,810 ballots issued to Plumas County voters for the June 7 Primary, and as of this morning, 37 percent of those have been received in the elections office. Will we know who won the race for Sheriff or other local contests after the polls close at 8 p.m. tonight? Probably not.
“We will not call any races for Plumas County, nor project any winners this evening, due to the number of ballots that will be received through the mail and signature verification process,” said Clerk/Recorder Marcy DeMartile.
With a low voter turnout — there will be many outstanding ballots — and whether they will arrive postmarked in the mail or aren’t cast at all won’t be known immediately.
Voters have until 5 p.m. today to have their ballots postmarked and until 8 p.m. to drop them off at the county courthouse. However, ballots that are turned in late in the day might not be counted because they first must be verified.
When asked about the process regarding the ballot box at the courthouse, DeMartile said, “We retrieve from the box quite a few times during the day. We will have an “unprocessed ballot report” that we have to report to the state tomorrow afternoon after the mail arrives, as post-marks count.”
The report the elections office releases tonight will be the only report released until all of the ballots have been received, signature checked and verified. In addition, a new law now allows voters to remedy their signature – or no signature – on their ballot return envelope for a full eight (8) days after the election. “We notify them of the issue, and give them the opportunity to remedy the issue if they did not include the information initially,” DeMartile said.
In addition, there will be a number of conditional voters to process following election day — voters who were not registered by the May 23 registration cut-off date.
The Official Final report will be issued following the canvass procedure on June 22, though an unofficial final report will be available sooner.
Plumas News will post the vote tallies tonight as they become available. DeMartile anticipates that information being available around 8:30 p.m.
