Follow KQED’s election results for California and the Bay Area as they come in
We’ve finally made it. It’s Election Day in California and just a few hours remain to cast your ballot. Voting locations and ballot drop boxes close at 8:00 p.m. PST.
If you’ve already voted, keep reading for a guide to what will happen next when it comes to when results will be announced, how votes are counted and more.
Still need to vote or just submit your ballot? Take a look at KQED’s Voter Guide for information on every race and ballot measure in the Bay Area, find out how you can register to vote at the last minute and what to do if you made a mistake on your ballot. And remember: At this stage, it’s best to submit your ballot by hand in your nearest official drop box or at a voting location rather than mailing it via USPS.
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Results will be reported by county election officials minutes after 8:00 p.m. The first batch of results posted are typically mail-in ballots received before Election Day.
“Those early arriving vote-by-mail ballots are what we see on live election results on the Secretary of State and county election websites as soon as polls close,” Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said on KQED Forum.
As the night goes on, some counties will begin to add ballots cast in person on Tuesday to the results. Vote-by-mail ballots returned through the postal service or drop boxes will be added in the days and weeks to come.
In California, election officials are allowed to process ballots when they are received — or to prepare them to be counted once polls close.
In Sonoma, as in many counties, that process begins before Election Day, when ballots received early are placed through a sorting machine and review of the signature the voter wrote on their ballot envelope begins.
“In Sonoma County, you sign underneath the flap of the envelope, and then you seal it closed,” said Deva Marie Proto, the county’s registrar of voters. “Our machine will actually laser off the portion of the envelope above that signature while still leaving it sealed.”
After signatures are reviewed by a machine and compared to the voter’s signature on file, Proto said election workers still then manually review those signatures.
“We have humans in our office, staff members that are trained in signature checking, and they will check every signature against the voter registration signature, as well as previous voter registration signatures and previous vote-by-mail signatures,” she added. Read more about how signatures are verified and how your county elections office resolves issues.
Once the voters’ information is verified, the ballots are loaded into a machine for counting and results are tabulated when polls close.
KQED does not independently call a winner in elections.
Instead, for state and federal races (Senate, Congress, state Legislature and state propositions), KQED relies on election services provided by the Associated Press to call a winner. This year, the AP is also providing a race call in the election for San Francisco mayor and the recall elections against the Oakland mayor and Alameda County district attorney.
When the AP calls a winner, you’ll see a check mark next to the candidate or measure’s name on our KQED elections results page. The AP will only make a call when it has the utmost confidence a race has been won, which the organization defines as “the moment the trailing candidates no longer have a path to victory.”
Election analysts at the AP are looking at the incoming vote totals and the estimated number of ballots left to be counted — along with pre-election voter surveys — to make their call.
No. For local races, KQED will retrieve vote results directly from county elections offices. So, in these elections, we won’t declare a winner. Instead, you may read or hear our reporters describe a measure as “appearing to pass” or a candidate “leading” a race.
We’ll report on campaign reactions to the results, such as if a candidate issues a concession. But we won’t add a checkmark next to local candidates or measure results, except in the three races mentioned above that the AP is following: the San Francisco mayoral contest and the recall elections against the Oakland mayor and Alameda County district attorney.
We will continue to update election results on our website until Dec. 5, which is the deadline for county election officials to certify the election results.
Following “precincts reporting” used to be a good way of measuring the progress of vote counting, but the widespread adoption of vote-by-mail has changed that.
A race with 100% of precincts reporting may just mean that some early vote-by-mail ballots have been counted in every precinct.
Some other counties don’t include vote-by-mail ballots at all in their precinct count, so early returns could show results with “0% of precincts reporting.” Don’t worry: Those aren’t “zombie” ballots.
It could take days or weeks for conclusive results in many closely watched races. In 2022, winners weren’t called in competitive races for Congress in the Central Valley and Southern California until mid-November and early December.
We likely won’t even have a clear picture of how many ballots are left to count until Wednesday or Thursday this week. Even then, the number of uncounted ballots is just an estimate, as ballots postmarked before polls close can still be counted if they arrive before Nov. 12.
“One of the things that I think is challenging for people is election results are reported in this river of information,” the California Voter Foundation’s Alexander said. “It’s very dynamic, and the number of ballots that counties have that can be counted can fluctuate after the election as they get more ballots in from the U.S. [Postal Service] that are postmarked by Election Day.”
Officially, vote counting will continue until late November or early December as election officials work to resolve any issues with ballots cast before the deadline. For example, if a voter’s signature does not match the signature on their voter file, election officials will reach out to the voter and seek to resolve the issue before votes are certified.
Election Day in the United States is now often considered election week as each state follows its own rules and practices for counting ballots — not to mention the legal challenges — that can delay the results.
But the truth is, nobody knows how long it will take for the winner to be announced this time.
In 2020, the Associated Press declared President Joe Biden the winner on Saturday afternoon — four days after polls closed. But even then, the AP called North Carolina for Trump 10 days after Election Day and Georgia for Biden 16 days later after hand recounts.
Four years earlier, the 2016 election was decided just hours after most polls closed. The AP declared Trump the winner on election night at 2:29 a.m. EST.
This time, both campaigns believe the race is extremely close across the seven swing states that are expected to decide the election, barring a major surprise: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The large number of swing states and the tightness of the race make it hard to predict when a winner could be declared.
This story includes reporting from the Associated Press’ Steve Peoples.
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