About 870 ballots from March 3 election have yet to be counted

Measure T and Measure R saw slight bumps in approval in the latest round of election updates released Friday by the Humboldt County Elections Office.

Measure T, an $18 million bond measure to repair Eureka High School’s Albee Stadium, is more safely passing, going from 55.98% approval to 56.41% approval, according to the fifth post-election update from the Humboldt County Elections Office. The measure needs 55% approval to pass.

Measure R, a special tax on new development intended to fund Arcata Fire Protection District, isn’t yet passing — it needs 66% approval to pass — but went from 62.51% approval to 63.03% approval. However, with the number of votes remaining to be counted, the measure wouldn’t pass even if all of those were yes votes.

The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors races didn’t see too much movement, with 1st District incumbent Rex Bohn with a solid lead over his competitor Cliff Berkowitz and 2nd District incumbent Estelle Fennell facing a runoff with competitor Michelle Bushnell.

There are about 870 conditional ballots remaining to be counted, said Lucinda Jackson, administrative analyst at the Elections Office, “and those take a bit longer to process.”

That’s because those ballots might include sameday registration or address changes, and those take more research to go through and process, she said.

“We had quite a few of those,” Jackson said.

The ballots were originally supposed to be certified by April 2, but the certification date was pushed back to April 23 by executive order because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jackson said.

“We’re working as quickly as we can,” Jackson said.