Election Day has come and gone, and hundreds of thousands of ballots are still being counted in San Diego County.
San Diego County Registrar of Voters Shawn Brom said he and his team were counting ballots late into the night on Election Day, and into the early morning the following day. The first results were posted just after 8 p.m., when polls closed.
“We did release a lot of results because we wanted to make sure we were timely in doing that,” Brom said. “So we released it at 10 p.m., 11 p.m., 12 a.m., 1 a.m. and an additional one, after about 2:30 a.m. So when the team was finally able to get out of the office, it was closer to about 3:30 a.m.”
Mercy Ebuetse and her husband were among the many people who voted in person at the San Diego County Registrar of Voters office on Election Day.
“It’s my civic duty to come and vote,” she said.
Both her and her husband are recently naturalized citizens. They're originally from Nigeria. She said it’s important for those who aren't native-born citizens to also get out and vote.
“I think the fact that we can do it together was really special. He got time off work to do that,” she said.
Julie Zulueta was there with her family too, dropping off their mail ballots. She said they find unity in the democratic process.
“We usually gather together every voting time as a family, even though we have different (political opinions),” she told KPBS.
Zulueta’s top priority when voting is “the budget and where it's going.”
Both families said the process was fast and efficient at the Registrar of Voters. However, the registrar's website showed that wait times at multiple voting centers across San Diego County exceeded one or even two hours in the late afternoon and evening on Election Day.
County Registrar of Voters Brom said many of those longer waits tended to be on college campuses.
He said about 90,000 people went to vote centers on Election Day, and about 13,000 of those people registered and voted at the same time.
“We did have a couple locations that were, two hours after 8 p.m., that they were still voting,” Brom said.
Brom said they sent ballots to more than 2 million registered voters in San Diego County. As of Nov. 4, the registrar’s website said over 765,000 ballots have been received with a projected 540,000 still outstanding.
That combined number comes out to just over a 64% voter turnout. That would put it among the highest midterm turnout rates in recent county history along with 1982, 2010 and 2018.
“During the midterm election, we did see an uptick. That was also by mail, but specifically in the vote center numbers — in-person voting — we did see more people turn out,” Brom said.
He said the Registrar is looking at voting data from this year to plan and make adjustments for future elections when it comes to longer lines or wait times.
That could include increased staffing, voting equipment or additional sites in certain communities.
Election results will continue to be tallied for days to come. By law, San Diego County election results must be certified by Dec. 3.
Statewide results are certified and final on Dec. 11.
