News

The Department of Elections Releases the Estimated Number of Ballots Left to Count for the November 5, 2024, Consolidated General Election

November 06, 2024

Department of Elections
City and County of San Francisco 
John Arntz, Director

For Immediate Release
SAN FRANCISCO, Wednesday, November 6, 2024 – The Department of Elections must still process and count approximately 157,000 ballots for the November 5, 2024, Consolidated General Election. This estimate includes: 

Vote-by-mail ballots (received the day before and on Election Day by mail, at drop boxes, and at polling places): 137,000.

Provisional ballots (cast at polling places and the City Hall Voting Center): 20,000.

Estimates of remaining ballots to count will be posted daily at sfelections.org/results, along with all election results reports. 

The Department counted nearly all of the ballots received by November 3.  Most remaining ballots to process and count were received on November 4 and Election Day from the City Hall Voting Center, official ballot drop boxes, the United States Postal Service (USPS), and from ballots cast at polling places on Election Day. Department personnel will continue processing and counting ballots until 10 p.m. tonight and will maintain the same schedule, 7 a.m. - 10 p.m., on Thursday, November 7. Ballot processing is open to public observation in-person and via livestream at sfelections.org/observe.  

In addition to the vote-by-mail ballots and provisional ballots received on Election Day, the Department will also need to process and count any vote-by-mail ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within one week of Election Day, or by Tuesday, November 12.  Since the Department had not reviewed today’s delivery of vote-by-mail ballots from the USPS prior to issuing this notice, the number of unprocessed ballots does not include any ballots received after Election Day that have valid postmarks on or before Election Day.

The Department will issue the next preliminary results reports at 4 p.m. on Thursday, November 7. At that time, Director John Arntz will be available to respond to questions from members of the public and the media outside of Room 48 in City Hall. 

No results reports will be issued today. The reason is the Department halted the processing of vote-by-mail ballots at 3 p.m. on Monday, November 4, to facilitate in-person voting at polling places. This pause in the processing of vote-by-mail ballots allowed in-person voters to cast a regular ballot to be tabulated at a polling place, rather than having to vote a provisional ballot.  The Department will resume the processing and counting of vote-by-mail ballots this afternoon, after all polling place rosters have been scanned and in-person voting histories have been reflected in voters’ records. 

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Department of Elections
City and County of San Francisco
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
City Hall, Room 48
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 554-4375
sfelections.gov