4:25pm | Approximately 2,000 votes remain uncounted after last night’s election, according to Long Beach City Clerk Larry Herrera. About 35,000 were counted last night to determine unofficial results.
“That’s about normal for a citywide election,” Herrera said today.
Some of the uncounted ballots were dropped off directly at City Hall, while others are vote-by-mail or provisional ballots dropped off at polls citywide from voters that may have voted in a precinct that they are not listed in. Others are not registered voters or have registration information that has not been updated. There are a variety of other reasons for the extra ballots as well. Herrera said that the number of uncounted ballots is about normal for an election of this size, and that his office has 21 days to complete official counting – although he plans on finishing well in advance of that deadline.
The big question is, will the uncounted ballots have any effect on the outcome of the elections?
“Typically what happens is the trends pretty much hold,” Herrera said. The City Clerk will have more information tomorrow as they begin to determine which ballots were properly submitted and deserve to be counted.
Some incumbents such as the Mayor, City Attorney and three Councilmembers won re-election handily. But a few others were very close races. At this time, Herrera says, it is too early to tell from what areas of the city most of the uncounted ballots have come from and so an accurate prediction of which races could possibly be affected by uncounted ballots is not possible.
He also said that once you determine how many uncounted ballots there are in each district, and how many votes would be needed to change the outcome of a race, the chances are very slim that the uncounted ballots will force a change in the results. A candidate would have to have won an abnormally large part of the uncounted ballots to shift the results.
A report was issued to some candidates last night that indicated a large amount of the uncounted votes could impact the 7th District race that currently stands to come to a run-off election between incumbent City Councilmember Tonia Reyes Uranga and challenger James Johnson. But the information in that report was inaccurate, according to Herrera.
More information will be known tomorrow, he said.