Bay Area counties say they're ready for Election Day

Mike Claudine, good evening to you and boy, Tuesday coming up fast and election officials here in the Bay and beyond say the vast majority of voters have cast or will cast their ballots by mail or drop them off in those collection bins. You see, as the clock eases towards four days left, most counties say they are ready. We are. We've had 108,000 voters already cast ballots. San Mateo County's assistant election officer says roughly 90% of residents are opting for vote by mail or dropping their ballots off. According to the California Voter Foundation, that's a statewide trend. We have grown from only 33% of voters casting vote-by-mail ballots to now, in June, we had almost 90% of our voters cast vote-by-mail ballots. So that really has impacted the speed of our vote count. Officials say there's a glut of ballots that will come in over the weekend and in the days leading up to Tuesday, and many voters will drop off their ballots. All of which slows the counting process. That delays our ability to get that into the vote count on election day, right? And so, I mean, we're throwing every resource we can to be as caught up as we can, so that we have as much of the vote in the count that I release on election night. California voters have really every reason to feel confident. And our election results and the speed of counting is improving. Earlier this year, the state allocated $40 million to help the individual counties prepare for Election Day. We are able to bring in extra staff, extend hours on the days before and after Election Day. So, yeah, we'll have the proper amount of staff to process the amount of ballots that we typically receive. Officials say delivering and processing your ballot at a polling place on Election Day is the fastest, most secure way to ensure your ballot is counted. We added an additional shift in terms of extending people's shifts to go further into the evening. And at this juncture, we're at a good clip in terms of keeping track with the ballots that come in and processing them. 22 days after Election Day, the ballots that have errors or problems with their signatures must be what's called cured. That means they'll get fixed or that'll, the discrepancy will be resolved. That'll be November 25th, deadline for that. December 3rd is the final day that all ballots must be certified. Some counties can choose to do that sooner if they like. Guys.