More than 20,000 Merced County ballots remain to be counted

Merced County Elections employees are working to process about 21,000 mail-in and provisional ballots received Tuesday in order to certify the election results by the Dec. 6 deadline.

County Registrar of Voters Barbara Levey said in a statement on Thursday the elections office still is accepting ballots through the mail until Nov. 14 as long as they were postmarked before or on Nov. 8.

These ballots are in addition to the nearly 44,000 received prior to Election Day and at the polls during the presidential general election.

Many Merced County races were too close to call and won’t be determined until the complete results are in.

Levey began the canvass of the election on Wednesday, and work to process ballots remains. Processing ballots includes verifying signatures on each ballot envelope, sorting ballots by precinct, preparing the ballots for tabulation and finally scanning and uploading each ballot. Mail ballots will be processed first, followed by provisional ballots.

Levey and her office also are reaching out to voters who did not sign their vote-by-mail ballots. A law effective Jan. 1 requires voters to go into the elections office to sign or submit an “unsigned ballot envelope” statement. Signatures are required for the ballot to be counted. Voters have until Nov. 16 to sign their ballots.

The election canvass will continue until complete, Levey said.

California law requires election certification on or before Dec. 6.

This story was originally published November 10, 2016 at 4:49 PM with the headline "More than 20,000 Merced County ballots remain to be counted."