Good afternoon - The information below is intended to give an update and context to the status of the ballot-counting activity resulting from yesterday’s election in San Joaquin County.

Please note, these numbers are estimates and subject to change. Furthermore, numbers will continue to evolve as additional ballots are received in the mail and tabulated. As noted in previous statements, San Joaquin County is experiencing a large number of damaged/defective ballots due to the method used to print barcodes on the Vote by Mail (VBM) ballots. These ballots are being duplicated in accordance with Elections Code to ensure each vote is counted correctly.

A summary of the election items is below:

• 42,000 VBM ballots received as of Saturday were supposed to post on June 7th, but due to a scanning issue only 15,000 actually posted. This, plus approximately 5,000 in-person poll votes equals slightly over 20,000 votes tabulated currently and reflected on the County and Secretary of State websites. ROV staff have identified each of the ballots with scanning issues, just like they would a damaged ballot, and have taken actions approved by the California Elections Code to duplicate the defective ballots using a two-person integrity process while under camera surveillance to ensure the votes are cast. This process takes time and will result in a longer tabulation time.
• The ROV received an additional 77,000 VBM ballots yesterday which will need to be scanned and tabulated. The ROV is speculating a large number of people held on to their ballots until election day because of concerns about mail timeliness and wanted to make sure their ballot arrived properly. This is a significant anomaly. Assuming that 25%-30% of those ballots will be rejected due to the scanning issue, it will most likely slow down the tabulating process.
• Thursday, June 9, 2022 by 5:00 p.m. is the next ballot posting. The reason the County is not doing more frequent postings is because each posting requires an extensive balancing process with the state, which slows the tabulating of ballots even further. It is called an unprocessed ballot report due each time we update.
• The County will release a posting schedule tomorrow, June 9, 2022, so people know when to expect the next updates.
• Because the County is required to tabulate properly postmarked (by Election Day, June 7th) ballots until next Tuesday, June 14, 2022, numbers will continue to change regardless of how many votes are tabulated and posted now.
• Only 7,000 people went to a polling place to vote, or ½ of 1% of San Joaquin County’s registered voters.

If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact me at: stephanieyoder@sbcglobal.net.