On Election Night, the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters releases unofficial results of voted ballots received from polling places throughout the County and voted mail ballots received prior to Election Day.

These results are cumulative and updates are released throughout the night.  The first results posting takes place at approximately 8:30 p.m. after the polls are closed. The polls are considered closed once all voters in line at 8 p.m. have completed voting. This posting includes results for the vast majority of mail ballots received from the U.S. Post Office on or before Election Day and mail ballot drop-off locations prior to Election Day.

Results for ballots cast at polling places on Election Day are added every two hours, thereafter. Ballot counting continues on Election Night until all regular ballots cast at polling places have been counted.  Though ballot counting may be completed for the night, the Registrar of Voters will continue to process and count additional ballots in the weeks following the election.  The estimated number of ballots remaining to be processed is provided to the public shortly after the final posting of the unofficial Election Night results and with each subsequent posting of results until the Final Certified Election Results are posted.

The ballots remaining to be processed include damaged ballots, ballots needing adjudication, mail ballots received on Election Day, mail ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within three business days following Election Day, mail ballots that require further signature review, provisional ballots, and conditional voter registration provisional ballots.

On Election Night, ballots are scanned using high-speed ballot scanners. To efficiently produce election night results, votes in a write-in space will not be reviewed on election night. These votes are tallied as Unresolved Write-Ins. The Unresolved Write-In tally may include:

• Votes for qualified candidates whose names appear on the ballot
• Votes for qualified write-in candidates
• Names of persons that did not file candidacy papers
• Stray marks

The Unresolved Write-In tally is included in the Total Votes for all candidates in a contest and impacts the unofficial percentage of votes for each candidate.

A sample of how Unresolved Write-Ins may effect a contest is shown below:

State Senator District 23

Precincts Reported: 240 of 240  (100.00%)

Candidates vote percentages will not add up to 100% until all Unresolved Write-Ins have been reviewed. The Unresolved Write-Ins are reviewed during the canvass and all votes for qualified candidates will be added to the election results upon completion of this review.