The San Benito County Elections Office counted about 650 more ballots Friday, but still has 5,385 ballots left to count and expects to finish the tallies by June 23, a top elections official said.
The San Benito County Elections Office updated its primary election results late Friday, but none of the races were affected by the new tally. The total ballot count went from 6,710 to 7,357.
Still, Assistant Clerk Angela Curro told San Benito Live the 5,385 ballots remaining. They include late mail-in ballots and those dropped off at the polls or elections office. Curro explained that the elections office must go through a rigorous checking process with those late ballots that includes cross-checking signatures of all poll voters with those who dropped them off. It’s meant to prevent double voting, she said.
Elections office workers went through that process Wednesday, then validated and proofed Thursday. Today, they started the process of opening those remaining ballots.
“Now, it’s going to start picking up and going faster,” Curro said, adding how those ballots are already entered into the system.
She said the next update will happen Tuesday afternoon or that evening. She mentioned how state law gives the office 30 days to complete the official canvass.
Of the remaining ballots, 5,185 are late ballots. Then there are 160 provisional ballots, 40 conditional registration ballots and 20 damaged ballots, according to a report on unprocessed ballots.
The relatively small number counted Friday didn’t affect any races.
Pat Loe and Peter Hernandez are outlasting Richard Perez for the runoff in the District 3 county supervisor race.
Jim Gillio and Jerry Muenzer are still headed toward a November runoff in the District 4 supervisor race.
Sheriff Darren Thompson, with more than 71 percent of the vote, will earn a third term with a comfortable victory over challenger Bill Hutchison.
Melinda Casillas, with nearly 72 percent, is headed toward a victory in the county treasurer’s race against Jaime De La Cruz.
Gregory LaForge remains in first for the judge race with 28.16 percent of the vote to 25.91 percent for Omar Rodriguez and 25.3 percent for Frances Henderson. Just 41 votes separate Rodriguez and Henderson.
As for measures:
Measure A, the abandoned vehicle fee, is headed toward a clear defeat. Measure B, an increase in the hotel tax from 8 to 12 percent, is on the yes side with 53 percent so far. Measure C, the cannabis tax initiative, is headed toward a victory with a margin of 59-41 percent.
See updated results here: http://sbcvote.us/registrar-of-voters/results-june-2018/
-Kollin Kosmicki
