San Francisco Sun

The Department of Elections in San Francisco has announced the schedule for reporting the results of the upcoming Consolidated General Election on November 5, 2024. The initial election night reports will be preliminary, with vote totals expected to change as more ballots are processed in the following days.

John Arntz, Director of the Department, explained that they anticipate receiving over 100,000 ballots on and after Election Day. These include vote-by-mail ballots delivered to polling places, provisional ballots cast on Election Day, vote-by-mail ballots postmarked by November 5 and received within seven days afterward, and challenged vote-by-mail ballots resolved before certification.

In compliance with a new state elections law, certified election results will not be issued before December 3.

On election night, four preliminary reports will be released. The first report is scheduled for approximately 8:45 p.m., covering most vote-by-mail ballots received prior to Election Day. Subsequent reports at around 9:45 p.m. and 10:45 p.m. will incorporate votes from polling places. The final report will include all precincts' results once they have reported.

These preliminary results will be available online at sfelections.gov/results and in hard copy at City Hall. Director Arntz will address questions from both media and the public after releasing all reports. SFGTV's Channel 26 plans to broadcast these results throughout the evening.

Starting November 6, a post-election canvass period begins where the number of outstanding ballots is updated daily until they are reviewed and counted. No updates will occur on November 6 itself; however, subsequent updates begin on November 7 at approximately 4 p.m., continuing each ballot processing day during this period.

Throughout this process, regular press releases detailing preliminary results and remaining uncounted ballots can be accessed via sfelections.gov/trustedinfo for those who subscribe.

Final local election results are set to be certified by December 5 at the latest. By law, a "canvass period" allows up to thirty days for counting every valid ballot alongside conducting audits to ensure machine count accuracy through manual tallying and risk-limiting procedures.