L.A. County adds a small amount of votes to tally
The wait continues.
Only a trickle of ballots were added to the overall tally during the Los Angeles County registrar's sixth post-election update Tuesday, just days before the registrar is scheduled to certify the results of the June 7 statewide primary.
And so, the suspense for candidates clinging to a lead or, in certain races, the final of two runoff spots — as well as those hoping to catch the leaders — will linger for a while longer.
The number of ballots processed for each post-election update, which take place on Tuesdays and Fridays, has slowed over the past week.
The registrar added only 571 ballots countywide Tuesday.
An estimated 6,491 remain to be processed, the registrar's office said in a Tuesday afternoon news release.
“Ballot count updates are of smaller quantities now as we near completion of the Official Election Canvass,” the registrar said, and as “the outstanding ballots go through verification or are pending signature curing.”
Signature curing is a process by which the registrar identifies vote-by-mail ballots with signature problems and sends letters to voters letting them know how to rectify — or “cure” — those issues.
All but 11 of the outstanding ballots are VBMs, the registrar said. And all of those VBMs are pending signature curing.
The deadline for voters to fix their ballots, the registrar said, is 5 p.m. today.
The next post-election update is scheduled for Friday. That's also the date on which the registrar is tentatively scheduled to certify the election, though the agency has until July 7.
The registrar had tallied 1,619,797 ballots as of Tuesday. Voter turnout is 28.46% so far; that percentage could inch higher once the remaining ballots are verified.
Only a handful of races countywide, though, are close enough to potentially hinge on those remaining ballots.
The general election — during which the top-two finishers in congressional, state Senate, Assembly and certain local races will head to a runoff — is scheduled for Nov. 8.