Santa Cruz Co. write-in hiccup stalls ballot counting till next Monday

SALINAS, Calif. (KION) Ballots across the Central Coast are still getting counted and it is resulting in some tighter races.

In Monterey County, there are now only 25,400 ballots left to be counted; down from 41,600 remaining since Election Day. In Santa Cruz County, the county clerk there tells KION there are only about 3,000 or so ballots left to be counted as well.

Over the last three days, poll workers in Monterey County have processed just about 16,000 ballots since Election Day, almost halving the number of remaining ballots.

"Everything is geared toward making sure that the voter is the voter and that the voter hasn't voted elsewhere," said Gina Martinez, the assistant registrar of voters at Monterey County.

There were about 32,000 vote-by-mail ballots received or postmarked on Election Day. This includes overseas ballots from military families. Provisional ballots numbered at 9,600 -- that count the same since Election Day.

KION asked why it has taken three days to release more results. Staff say they wanted to take a few more days to build up the results so they could release a larger chunk rather than putting out results in small increments.

Officials say this is nothing unusual to see. It happens every election cycle and it is the same process every time.

"We have to scan them, we have to sort them, we have to identify the voter, we have to make sure it's the voter, we have to make sure they haven't voted twice. This is the process, it's not that it's taking any longer than it did when we received vote by mail ballots before Election Day," said Martinez.

Meanwhile, over in Santa Cruz County, a slight hiccup occurred involving write-ins on the ballot. Election officials there say the system was set up to only count the votes cast for qualified write-ins, which was only available for the presidential ticket.

"We are now going back to adjudicate those ballots that had a write-in for any other office to make sure those were getting counted appropriately," said Gail Pellerin, the Santa Cruz County Clerk.

The corrections stalled any more ballot counting for the day until next week. With so many races across the Central Coast very close still, candidates simply have to continue waiting.

"Now they're all being very patient. I mean everybody wants those results, but I think everybody wants those results done right. And that's what we're going to do," said Martinez.

The Monterey County Election Office says they will be releasing more results next week and with more frequency than this past week.