{"id":480990,"date":"2026-09-30T23:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T23:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/480990\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T23:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T23:56:08","slug":"orange-county-elections-chief-expects-faster-vote-counting-this-year-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/480990\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County elections chief expects faster vote counting this year \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

With just about a month to go until\u00a0Election Day<\/a>, Orange County election officials are expecting vote counting speeds to continue improving despite the long ballots voters will find in their mailboxes next week.<\/p>\n

Ballots for Orange County voters \u2014 of which there are more than 1.9 million<\/a> \u2014 will be picked up by the U.S. Postal Service on Saturday morning, Oct. 3, from the registrar of voters\u2019 Santa Ana office, Registrar Bob Page said during a media briefing Wednesday. A livestream of the pickup will be available on the election office\u2019s website<\/a>, Page said.<\/p>\n

That means ballots will begin to be delivered on Monday, Page said.<\/p>\n

This year, voters will be receiving one of 549 \u201cunique ballot styles\u201d that have been printed. While most will receive a 17-inch-long, two-sheet ballot, some voters will receive a three-sheet ballot, depending on local races and a voter\u2019s preferred languages, Page said.<\/p>\n

Related: Life of a ballot: How Orange County\u2019s votes are counted, verified and stored<\/a><\/p>\n

Overall, Orange County voters will get to decide on a total of 430 candidates in 169 local, state and federal races. Additionally, 14 statewide propositions<\/a>, 13 city-specific measures and two school district bond measures will appear on ballots, Page said.<\/p>\n

Vote-counting speeds have improved after each election cycle dating back to 2018 \u2014 and the expectation is for that trend to continue this November, Page said.<\/p>\n

This is in part because of the upgrades to facilities and equipment that were made over the past month, thanks to a $3.2 million allotment of state funds the county election office received in late August, Page said.<\/p>\n

As part of the $350 billion budget deal inked in late June<\/a>, California lawmakers earmarked $40 million to speed up vote counting this election<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of the $3.2 million his office received, Page said most of that money \u2014 more than $2.75 million \u2014 was spent expanding the office\u2019s ballot processing space, buying new equipment and hiring additional temporary staff ahead of the election.<\/p>\n

The remaining amount, a little over $477,000, was used to conduct voter education and outreach, Page said.<\/p>\n

Following this past primary election in June, results from about 96.6% of accepted ballots were counted within a week after Election Day. By comparison, during the 2018 primary election, results of at least 95% of accepted ballots were not published until the two-week mark post-Election Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the proof in the pudding,\u201d Page said. \u201cWe\u2019ve cut the time in half of how long it takes to get at least 95% of the ballots in the count.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year \u2014 as in years past \u2014 voters have four options to cast their ballots.<\/p>\n

Once received in the mail, voters can fill out their ballot and return it by mail, place it in any one of the 128 drop boxes stationed across Orange County, drop off the completed ballot at any one of the 192 vote centers that will open in late October, or vote in person at a vote center.<\/p>\n

For those who wish to vote in person, Page said voters can bring their ballot with them to any one of the county\u2019s vote centers to cast it. Voters can also check in with election staff, who can issue a replacement ballot to those who need one and haven\u2019t already voted.<\/p>\n

Drop boxes will open on Oct. 2. Page touted their security and integrity, as the large boxes are made of steel and bolted into the concrete. Each one is individually keyed, Page said, meaning there is no master key that could open all of them or one key that could open multiple boxes.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Page said, two election workers are required to be present every time a drop box is opened, and its ballots are transferred.<\/p>\n

Of the 192 vote centers that will be available to Orange County voters come Election Day, 39 of them will open Oct. 24,\u00a011 days ahead of Nov. 3, while the remaining 152 will open on Oct. 31. One vote center will open on Election Day itself, at UC Irvine\u2019s Verano Place Community Center, Page said.<\/p>\n

Vote centers will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Oct. 24 through Nov. 2, but hours will extend from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 3. Additionally, election workers will hold five pop-up voting events across the county in the week leading up to Election Day, he said.<\/p>\n

Visit ocvote.gov\/voting<\/a> to find more information about ways to cast a ballot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With just about a month to go until\u00a0Election Day, Orange County election officials are expecting vote counting speeds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1400,163,165,164,7,204,100,611,8047,13,136,6392],"class_list":["post-480990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-2026-elections","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-california","tag-election","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orange-county-elections","tag-politics","tag-top-stories","tag-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}