SACRAMENTO, Calif. — It has been two weeks since Election Day and Sacramentans still don’t know who their next mayor will be.
This comes after Tuesday’s update of the ballot count, showing an ever-narrowing race. Current Assemblymember Kevin McCarty is leading public health professional Dr. Flojaune “Flo” Cofer by some 3,159 hundred votes - a margin that has decreased with every update.
After ABC10 reported this, audience members reached out with questions: Could a candidate ask for a recount? And why is it taking so long for Sacramento County to count the votes and declare a winner?
For those answers, ABC10 turned to Ken Casparis, a public information officer for the Sacramento County Department of Voter Registration and Elections, which administers and oversees the entire elections process within Sacramento County.
“We received over 650,000 ballots. That's a lot of ballots to go through. Every ballot has a human touching it. Every ballot is printed on paper, so the vast majority of those we have to verify signatures on because they were either mailed or dropped off in a ballot dropbox, so we have to make sure that the signature on it matches the voter's file,” he said. “It just takes time to get all of that verified and ready to go and get processed and tabulated, but we are moving just as quickly as we have in past elections.”
He points out, the majority of outstanding ballots now are ‘Conditional Voter Registration’ ballots, given to people who want to register and vote on the same day. Before their vote can be counted, their registration must be processed after Election Day, which takes extra time.
The delay in results is the flipside of California offering such broad voter access, he said.
"We give people a lot of access, a lot of different ways to vote, so it takes time to do it on our end," Casparis said. "We should have the complete picture of our results, we're hoping, later this week."
Sacramento County’s next vote count update is Friday afternoon. If it shows Cofer has further narrowed the gap, could she ask for a recount?
“Either candidate or really any registered voter in California can request a recount of any of these contests,” Casparis said.
State law says any registered California voter can request a recount. They must do so in writing within five days of the county certifying the election results, in early December.
“Then they would bear the cost of the recount as well,” Casparis said.
He said that exact figure "depends on the race and type of recount requested (manual vs electronic). We will give an estimate to the requestor prior to conducting the recount."
The cost of a recount may consist of but is not limited to:
- Manual Recount
- Compensation of one recount board for every 10 precincts to be recounted. A recount board is made up of one election supervisor, one election assistant and two election clerks. Election Officer rate is used for calculating the recount board cost.
- Production of relevant material (see Research of Records fee)
- Electronic Recount
- Testing and certifying the accuracy of the ballot counting program before and after the ballots are counted
- Accuracy Board
- Logic and Accuracy Testing, Ballot Tabulation, and Machine Reports
- Other costs
- Security
- Cost of publications
- Supervision and staff time
- Computer time, per hour
- Overhead costs
"It can - depending on the size of the race - be a pretty significant cost," Casparis said.
It would be expensive, but state law says — if the recount does change the result, the requestor’s money will be refunded to them.
Some counties have thresholds that automatically trigger a recount if a race is particularly close, Casparis says, but Sacramento County is not one of them. Similarly, he said there is no minimum vote threshold that must be reached in order for someone to request a recount.
"The law for recounts is based on the state legislature – how counties apply the law is up to them, as long as it’s within the law," Casparis said.
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