Dust off that ballot booklet that’s been sitting on the kitchen counter for the last month because today is the day! Get yourself to a voting center before 8 p.m. to have your say on the direction of the city, county, state and country we call home.
A key note: Mail-in ballots must be postmarked on Tuesday AND received within a week to be counted. So if you haven’t dropped yours in the mail yet, the California Secretary of State recommends voting in person or using an official drop box.
Read on for more details on how to vote and when we might get election results. (Spoiler alert: It could take a while.)
Who should I vote for?
Not sure which of the 61 candidates for governor aligns with your values? What about who is best equipped to be successful as the state’s insurance commissioner? For statewide offices, you can check out the CalMatters Voter Guide for a comprehensive breakdown of the candidates, their positions, experience and how their campaigns are being funded.
Here in Long Beach, you’ll find a number of candidates vying to serve you at the city and county level. For those races, you can check out our voter guide at LBPost.com/elections or LAist’s Voter Guide, which both outline the responsibilities of the positions being contested in addition to general information on the candidates.
Where can I vote?
If you have yet to vote, it’s best to vote in person at a local voting center or drop off your mail-in ballot at an official drop box. You can find voting locations and drop boxes near you here.
Not sure if you are registered to vote? You can still cast a ballot, but you’ll have to do so at an LA County vote center. Check your registration status here.
When will we know who won?
While Tuesday is the end of the primary cycle for voters, it kicks off a months-long counting campaign run by LA County’s Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office. Results will be updated here, and you can watch a livestream of the vote counting process here.
If your mail-in ballot was already received by the registrar’s office (You can check the status of your ballot here.), it’s likely already been counted and will be part of the results posted shortly after polls close between 8:30 and 8:45 p.m. Tuesday. Between 8:45 and 9 p.m., the office will begin releasing results from ballots cast in person at voting centers across the county.
After Election Day, election officials will continue counting ballots postmarked by Tuesday and received within seven days, as well as provisional ballots cast by voters who registered at the polls. Twelve updates to the overall vote count will be posted between 4 and 5 p.m. until June 26, when the office certifies the election results. Those results are then sent to the California Secretary of State’s office, which has 38 days after the election to certify them.
Some media outlets may project winners based on calculations of outstanding ballots before official results are certified by the county and state. But at the county and city level, that could still take a while — unlike a presidential election, there’s no one at a big red and blue map with teams of data scientists analyzing the early returns.
Wait, we have to vote again in November?
In many races, this June primary is just a dress rehearsal for the big show in November, when two final candidates will face off to earn your vote. Candidates who receive more than 50% of the vote in this June primary spare themselves from participating in a run-off in November.