It took a month even though there was only one thing on the ballot, but the County Election’s Office has finally certified the Nov. 4 Special Election for San Luis Obispo County.
And the Proposition 50 Congressional redistricting easily passed here, like it did across the Golden State.
“While the bulk of the vote tabulation,” the Clerk-Recorder ‘s Office said in a news release,” including processing more than 113,000 mail ballots was completed on Nov. 17, by law voters had until 5 p.m. Nov. 30 to cure a missing or mismatched signature on their return envelope.
“Once they provided a verifiable signature, their ballot was counted and their vote added to the results.”
The Elections Office also had over 2,000 “provisional ballots” they had to research and “in most cases duplicate.” We can look to college students for this mess.
“Most of those provisional ballots came from polling locations located at and around Cal Poly,” County Clerk-Recorder, Elaina Cano said. “Someone votes provisionally if they’re registering to vote there at the polls on Election Day and/or are voting at a precinct that isn’t their assigned location; in most cases, the ballot must be logged and duplicated onto a ballot from the correct precinct by a team of three people before it can be counted.
“Those steps are a big part of the canvass process and help ensure that every eligible vote is counted.”
The Clerk-Recorder is happy with the turnout. “We are really proud of SLO County voters for the 67-percent turnout countywide,” said Cano. “That’s 17 percent higher than the statewide average of 50 percent and puts us at the fourth highest turnout among all 58 counties.”
Ironically, Prop. 50, which was the only thing on the local ballot, didn’t even affect SLO County’s Congressional District boundaries. Indeed, only five Congressional Districts of the state’s more than 50 were being redrawn in the Governor’s scheme to wipe out Republican officeholders.
Cano hopes to avoid a repeat of this months-long count for the upcoming elections. “We,” Cano said, “are going to do everything possible to encourage Cal Poly students to register or re-register from their home county well in advance of Election Day.”
She also pointed out that a new State Law will require all Vote-by-Mail ballots to be processed within 13 days of an election beginning in 2026.
“While the County voluntarily met that timeline during this election canvass,” she said, “it will be harder with more contests on the ballot during the 2026 Primary and General Elections.
Among the offices that will be contested is the first chance for Estero Bay communities Los Osos and Morro Bay, along with about half of San Luis Obispo, to vote for Dist. 2 County Supervisor.
Voters can expect more of this election stuff to go online. “One thing that will help is our upcoming move to e-pollbooks, which will cut down on the number of provisional ballots we’ll have to process,” Cano said, “since the e-pollbooks can confirm voter eligibility right there at the polls. The current process requires us to do it back at the office after the fact and that takes time.”
