It's Election Day and while ballots were mailed out to every voter weeks ago, Tuesday is the last day to vote both by mail and in-person.
“Just absolutely make sure that the collection time is after the time that they are putting it in the mail so that it will get postmarked for Election Day," San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano advised for voters putting ballots in ballot boxes.
Ballots dropped off after the last collection time may not be counted.
By Monday morning, 54,745 mail in ballots had been returned to the SLO County Clerk-Recorder's Office. In Santa Barbara County, 65,732 had been returned.
Ballots can be dropped off at drop boxes throughout the day, but Cano warns that they might have different deadlines.
“The drop boxes are they will be closing at the time of the close of business for each one of the locations in which they're at so all the libraries, community services, districts, city halls, they have designated closing times,” added Cano.
Designated polling places close Tuesday at 8 p.m. Once the polls close, the County will begin releasing the results of the vote-by-mail ballots that had been counted up to that point, and then release updated results periodically as more votes are counted.
“If they choose to vote at their designated polling place, we would like for them to bring their vote-by-mail ballot with them so that they could surrender that ballot and then they would be issued the precinct ballot," explained Cano. If someone does not bring in their mail-in ballot, the poll worker will call the vote-by-mail call center and confirm that the voter has not already voted.
Cano says people are often tempted to call the election as soon as the polls close, but says there are still thousands of ballots to count in the days that follow.
Voters in SLO County can find ballot boxes here and herefor Santa Barbara County. People can drop off their mail-in ballot at any polling place, but there are designated polling places at the top of your ballot to vote in person.
