Roughly 2,600 More Votes To Count In Marin's Local Elections

MARIN COUNTY, CA – There are still about 2,600 ballots to count in Tuesday's local elections, according to the Marin County Elections Department.

The department posted the first results shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday. More than 11,000 polling place ballots were counted on Election Night, according to the department.

"This was the first use of the new voting system, and everything went smoothly," Registrar of Voters Lynda Roberts said in a statement. "Unlike past elections, we had very few phone calls from poll workers on election morning needing help with the equipment."

As of Thursday morning, an estimated 1,900 vote-by-mail ballots and nearly 700 provisional ballots still need to be tallied, county officials said. Those 2,600 ballots require signature verification before envelopes can be opened and ballots counted.

Roberts predicted that most, if not all, of the vote-by-mail ballots will be counted by Friday. Vote tallies will be updated at marinvotes.org each Wednesday and Friday until the election is declared completed, according to the department.

Roberts anticipated certifying the election before Thanksgiving.

About 3,400 vote-by-mail ballots arrived on Election Day either in the mail or from voters who dropped off their ballots at a precinct or at the Marin County Civic Center. The law allows mailed ballots to be counted up to three days after the election as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.

Another recent law change allows voters to register on Election Day at the Civic Center and submit a provisional ballot, which also requires verification before being counted.