A week after election, there’s still 81,000 unprocessed ballots in Sonoma County

Nearly 81,000 ballots received late by the Sonoma County elections office have yet to be counted as of Thursday afternoon. That’s nearly 40 percent of all votes cast during the Nov. 6 election.

Deva Proto, the incoming county elections chief, said today it’s unclear when counting all of the ballots cast for last week’s election will be completed. Under state law, county officials have 30 days after election day to certify all votes.

The sheer number of unprocessed ballots, which includes 71,554 mail-in votes received between Nov. 5 and Nov. 9, could affect a number of close contests such as Santa Rosa’s District 4 council race.

Victoria Fleming, who received 43.5 percent of the vote on election day, or 3,004 votes, leads Dorothy Beattie by only 169 votes. There are 3,933 mail-in ballots yet to be counted in that race alone.

Also, in Petaluma, where residents chose candidates for three council seats, there are 9,447 unprocessed mail-in ballots. D’lynda Fischer, leading in the third place slot with 6,176 votes, is ahead of Dennis Pocekay by only 97 votes.

Proto said the process of counting votes in Sonoma County is complicated by a number of factors, including an outdated system of counting votes and the vast number of people who cast votes through mail-in and provisional ballots.

An unprecedented 8,226 provisional ballots are estimated to have been cast countywide last week. Provisional ballots are cast by registered voters whose names were not on the official voter registration list at the polling place.

Verifying provisional ballots is extremely time consuming and requires verifying signatures, eligibility to vote, confirming that the voter already has not voted and cross-checking the local races that they are allowed to vote on. Officials have only begun that process this week.

“We can do it quickly or we can do it correctly and accurately,” Proto said. “After election day, there are a lot of mandated duties for reconciling and processing ballots - it’s not just counting.”

On top of the unprocessed mail-in and provisional ballots, 554 conditional ballots were cast by Sonoma County residents who registered to vote on election day. And another 380 are categorized as “other,” which includes ballots that are damaged and must be remade, bringing the total number of unprocessed votes to about 81,000.

Proto said a small number of the 71,554 mail-in ballots may have been counted on election day, But that number is likely small because election workers were busy handling provisional and conditional voting. In some cases, provisional ballots were cast by Sonoma County residents who were in other counties in the state. Proto said her office is still receiving local voters’ provisional ballots from other counties.

”I think everyone in the state saw more provisionals than ever before this year,” she said.

Proto, who officially takes office in January, said the county’s computer system to count votes will be replaced with a new one that allows votes to be tallied and updated periodically. The system now in place does not allow for updates.

That means that all late ballots - mail-in, provisional and conditional - must be verified, sorted and processed before their votes can be tallied and added to election day totals.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @renofish.