BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Even though poll workers at the Kern County Elections Department were still counting vote-by-mail ballots and provisional ballots Wednesday, election officials are saying they've already counted over 145,000 ballots.
On top of that number, Kern County Registrar of Voters Mary Bedard said as of Wednesday morning there were still at least 50,000 ballots to count.
She notes that just because the Kern County Election’s website indicates that all precincts have been reported, that doesn’t include all mail-in ballots, nor does it include all drop-offs or provisional ballots.
Bedard explained that 100% of all the precincts reported on the website refers to the 16,702 people who voted Tuesday without any voter eligibility questions.
Bedard estimates that they could have somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 provisional or conditional voter registration envelopes that have not been fully processed yet.
Despite their public service announcement, press releases and other outreach, Bedard added that the majority of people who showed up at the polls in Kern County Tuesday, did not surrender their mail-in ballot and had to vote provisionally.
According to Bedard, the first results reported Tuesday night were the 128,432 vote-by-mail ballots received prior to election day.
She said enough were received prior to Election Day that the elections office was able to complete the signature checking process and tabulate them.
“Everything else reported last night were poll place ballots,” Bedard said.
As of Wednesday morning, roughly 145,134 ballots had been counted, but according to Bedard, there are at least 50,000, perhaps “tens of thousands more,” dropped off on Election Day or that just arrived in the mail that still needed to be counted.
