Voter turnout in Merced County elections remain “healthy” as early ballots recorded
Nearly 30% of Merced County's registered voters have had their ballots recorded as of Wednesday morning, indicating a healthy voter turnout, according to election officials.
About 37,011 ballots have been cast, or 28.04% of the 132,016 registered voters in the county. Merced County Registrar of Voters Melvin Levey, said early indications point to a healthy voter turnout for the election with early vote-by-mail numbers outpacing what the county has seen in recent elections. Even with the initial results, Levey cautioned that it remains too early to accurately predict what the overall voter turnout will be.
After receiving tens of thousands of ballots over the past couple of days, elections officials are working to count and determine the remaining number of ballots that have yet to be processed, according to Levey. That information is expected to be posted on the county elections website on Thursday.
There were roughly 300 election workers throughout the county on Tuesday, which Levey said is a record number since the county adopted a Vote Center model which allows voters to cast their ballot at any polling location in the county.
"We had staffed up in anticipation of higher turnout and so it was a record," said Levey. "We still saw some lines in different locations, I think most places around the state, around the country were seeing lines based on the turnout— but it was a record under this Vote Center model."
The St. Patrick's Parish polling location on East Yosemite Avenue in Merced, was the last location to deliver ballots to the county's elections warehouse on Tuesday with the ballots arriving at the warehouse shortly before 12 a.m. Wednesday, according to Levey. Of all the polling locations in the county the St. Patrick's Parish location remained open the latest due to the amount of people waiting in line by 8 p.m.
"Right at 8 p.m. we put two poll workers at the end of that line" said Levey. "Essentially, anyone ahead of them in line gets to vote, gets to cast their ballot, anyone behind them is marked as late for the election."
According to Levey, it took poll workers more than two hours to process the voters who were in the line by 8 p.m..
With Election Day finished, Levey said it's going to take time to record the votes from the tens of thousands of ballots that have yet to be processed and counted. Adding to that number are ballots that the Merced County Elections Office can receive by the United States Postal Service through Tuesday, Nov. 12, as long as the ballots were postmarked by Nov. 5.
On Thursday morning, election officials will begin processing vote by mail ballots which require signature verification by election officials trained to do so. Election officials also must complete a manual tally involving batches of ballots selected at random, in order to ensure accuracy before the results can be certified on Dec. 3.
According to the Merced County Elections Office, the next update to voting results is expect to be released no later than 5 p.m. Nov. 8.
