Monterey County to release next round of election results by Friday

MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif. (KION) Last night, some waited until the final day to cast their vote in-person. "I put in my vote and took my time," said voter, Yolando Campos Robles.

Wednesday, the staff at the Monterey County Elections office are taking the time they said they need as well. According to officials, the next round of results will be revealed by the end of the day on Friday.

"We will be taking our time to make sure that we process everything correctly," said Monterey County Elections Office Program Manager, Ayna Gutierrez.

Many in the public see the process taking longer than usual, but Gutierrez said a few days after the election are almost always needed to process all the ballots. Gutierrez adds that the elections office experienced no issues or delays.

Staff at the elections office are counting both the provisional and remaining vote-by-mail ballots. The process is known as the "canvasing period."

"For each provisional we have to verify the information. We have to verify that the voters qualify to vote in this election. Once that is verified, we check the signature. We extract and then tabulate. It's a long process and we have a lot of provisionals," said Gutierrez.

41,600 ballots still need to be counted in Monterey County. 32,000 of those ballots were submitted by mail. 9,600 were provisional or conditional ballots.

Over the next couple of days, election officials said they will prioritize accuracy over speed to make sure every vote is counted right. "I think patience is key. Patience while we process everything. We will have results as soon as we can," said Gutierrez.