SLO County Elections Office On Track to Meet New Deadline, Completes 1% Manual Tally

Author: Erin Clausen
Date: 11/14/2025 3:25 PM

The SLO County Elections Office has completed the 1% Manual Tally audit and has counted more than 111,000 Statewide Special Election ballots as of Friday, November 14. The office is on track to meet a canvass deadline that isn't actually law until 2026, anticipating that all mail ballots will be tabulated and included in the unofficial results on Monday, November 17 -- 13 days after the election.

San Luis Obispo, CA-The SLO County Elections Office announced today that it had tabulated more than 111,000 ballots from the November 4, 2025, Statewide Special Election and has approximately 10,000 unprocessed ballots remaining. Those unprocessed ballots include the final batches of mail ballots, all provisional ballots, and ballots requiring a voter's signature cure.

The office said it anticipates counting the remaining mail ballots on Monday, which would mean that the county had successfully met the new 13-day mail ballot canvass deadline that isn't actually a legal requirement until the June 2, 2026 primary. Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano said that despite the governor not calling the special election until just 74 days before Election Day, she saw this one as an opportunity to practice achieving the new goal.

"We've got a small elections team-only about 15 people, including our loyal temps-so I wanted to see if by tightening up a few processes we could meet the deadline that we'll be required to meet in June," said Cano. "Now that we've got the remaining ballots processed and ready to count, it looks like we'll make it just fine."

The Elections Office conducted the legally required 1% Manual Tally on Thursday, November 13, during which it randomly selected the ballots cast at three precincts as well as five batches of mail ballots that were counted during the semi-official canvass before Election Day. In all, 1,219 ballots were hand-counted by teams of four people, and the results were compared against the machine tallies for the same ballots. As anticipated, the totals matched and confirmed the accuracy of the tabulators.

Also on Friday, Cano's office released a set of statistics regarding ballots processed to date. As of that morning, voter participation across the county was at 62%, well ahead of the statewide average of 50%. When the canvass is complete, the Elections Office expects participation to hit about 65%.

Out of all ballots counted, 96% were mail ballots and just 4% were cast at the polls. As Cano points out, the office has to prepare as if every registered voter will show up at the polls, which means fully staffed polling locations and workers trained to help voters who prefer to vote a precinct ballot.

"While getting mail ballots in before Election Day helps us move through processing and counting more efficiently, it's totally up to each voter how they choose to vote. SLO County voters, like voters statewide, have really gravitated toward mail voting over the last few years."

Other statistics released include that of the mail ballots cast, 66% were sent via USPS, 20% were cast using an official drop box, and 14% were dropped off in person. In terms of ballots counted to date, 43% were from registered Democrats, 36% from registered Republicans, 15% from registered No Party Preference (California's version of independent), 4% from registered American Independents, 1% from registered Libertarians, and less than 1% each from voters registered with the Green and Peace & Freedom parties.

As of the end of the day Friday, the results for Proposition 50 in SLO County stood at 54.72% Yes and 45.28% No. Results and the updated Unprocessed Ballots Report can be found at SloVote.com/November2025. Final results will be posted there once the Clerk-Recorder certifies the election.