LAKE COUNTY — The registrar of voters said there”s no “funny business” going on and it”s normal to have unprocessed votes after Election Day, in this case 3,766 votes, including provisional ballots.
The Registrar of Voters Office is continuing to count 3,081 vote-by-mail ballots turned in at the polls and office or received in the mail on Election Day or the day before, Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley said. Another 148 votes cast on the electronic voting machines are waiting to be processed and counted along with 537 provisional ballots.
“There”s no funny business. There”s no problem,” Fridley said. “It”s a regular process we go through.”
The 3,229 unprocessed votes, not including provisional ballots, account for almost 10 percent of the 32,763 registered voters in the county. The uncounted votes could change election results, especially those in the district attorney race, Fridley said.
Incumbent Jon Hopkins has 205 fewer votes than challenger Doug Rhoades, who is behind Don Anderson by 625 votes. In the primaries, unless one candidate gets more than 50 percent of the votes, the top two run off in the Nov. 2 election. With all the precincts reporting late on election night, Hopkins was in the third spot. However, the additional ballots could push him back into the race.
Fridley said she doesn”t expect the sheriff race to change as election night results consistently placed Deputy Francisco Rivero at No. 1, incumbent Sheriff Rod Mitchell at No. 2 and challenger Jack Baxter at No. 3. Baxter is 844 votes behind Mitchell.
In order to count the vote-by-mail ballots, electronic votes and provisional ballots, Registrar of Voters Office workers have to go through a multi-step process, Fridley said.
“It”s not unusual that it takes this long,” Fridley said.
Fridley said she doesn”t certify the election results until every vote is counted. She will also do a manual recount of 1 percent of the votes 9 a.m. June 23 as long as the races aren”t too close, for which she has to manually count 10 percent of the ballots.
She has until July 6 to certify and submit the results to the Board of Supervisors. However, she said she”s sure the candidates would like to know the results as soon as they”re available.
“We”re not rushing through anything,” Fridley said. “Because when you rush, there are errors. We”re not making any errors.”
Contact Katy Sweeny at kdsweeny@gmail.com or call her directly at 263-5636, ext. 37.
