Sonoma County voters may have set turnout record

Sonoma County election officials won’t know until week’s end if Tuesday’s election set a turnout record.

They were regrouping after a long night to begin the process of counting remaining ballots.

“All of the vote-by-mail ballots turned in at the polls and provisional ballots are still locked up in the warehouse,” said Elizabeth Acosta, Sonoma County elections manager. “We have to check those in and get those processed.”

Until a team of election workers gets to the warehouse and begins the laborious process how many ballots remain to be counted is unknown Acosta said.

It’s possible there are tens of thousands of ballots remaining, which could make a difference in some races, she said.

She estimated it could take until Friday to get the bulk of those ballots counted. Provisional ballots, where people voted outside of their proper polling place, could take a few weeks to count.

The remaining uncounted absentee ballots were turned in at polling places or the county office as late as Tuesday night.

They’re also ones where voters voted outside of their polling place. All must be checked for validity, including if the voter was registered and if they’re signed properly.

“It’s a tedious process. It’s kind of methodical,” Acosta said.

When the polls closed Tuesday night, officials said 128,682 absentee ballots had been turned in, representing some 48 percent of the county’s 252,000 registered voters. Registration was up by 3,375 voters over 2004.

Going in to the election, County Clerk Janice Atkinson had high hopes that turnout would top 90 percent. The previous record for voter turnout was 89.4 percent of registered voters in the 2004 presidential election.

The registrar’s Web site on Wednesday said that 197,824 ballots had been totalled, indicating a turnout so far of 78.5 percent.