Lake County Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley and her staff have until the end of this month to finish the process.
Fridley said ballots were mailed to absentee, or vote by mail, voters on Oct. 4. The ballots that were returned by Oct. 28 were included in the preliminary ballot count issued early on Nov. 3.
Still being counted are 4,500 vote by mail ballots turned in between Oct. 29 and Nov. 2. Of those, 1,834 were turned in on election day, Fridley said.
Fridley's staff has already entered the 4,500 absentee ballots in the elections office computer system and checked the signatures, but the count continues because she said there are many checks and balances for accuracy.
The elections office also has to count 872 provisional ballots, 721 of which were issued at the polls on Nov. 2, according to Fridley.
In the June primary, Fridley's office still had 3,081 vote by mail ballots to count after the preliminary results were reported, along with 537 provisional ballots, she said.
This month approximately 174 local voters used the electronic eSlate voting machines, compared to 148 in the June primary, Fridley said.
There have been no problems with the eSlate machines, although Fridley said they are “a lot of work,” and require their own verification and paper trail.
Voter turnout in the June primary was 47.5 percent, according to the final certification. That was 11.4 percent higher that the turnout estimated in the preliminary vote count.
The preliminary voter turnout for Nov. 2 is 48.8 percent, based on county records. That number is likely to change after the final count is done, as it did in the primary.
Fridley said the full count will be completed within the alloted 28 days.
“My goal was to have it done before Thanksgiving,” although Fridley said she may not make that goal.
Also slowing the process is a required manual count, or sample, of a minimum 1 percent of randomly selected precincts for the general election. That tally started Monday and will take two to three days to complete, Fridley said.
The manual count isn't as fast as putting 1,000 cards a minute through a ballot counter, she said. Also, it requires about four people.
“Things kind of stop during the manual count,” she said.
In preparation for that delay, Fridley said she and her staff worked on Veterans Day in order to try to get ahead.
On election night, Fridley and her staff struggled when two of their three ballot counting machines stopped working.
The paper on the ballots for the general election were a little bit thicker, which caused the problem, she said.
A vendor was at Fridley's office last week working on the machines. She said he was able to adjust them to work with the different paper thickness.
The ballot counting machines are older – Fridley said one of the machines was purchased in 1983. But other than the election night glitch, they've worked fine, she said.
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