It is unclear to me how this will impact the final turnout. 2020 was an outlier due to the pandemic, and I assume that 2022 was also extraordinary. That leaves 2016 as the most recent "normal" election: 63.5% of the turnout that year was VBM.
It's Election Day and the Department of Elections has received and accepted less than 200k vote-by-mail ballots! I am very surprised. I expected it to be low, but not this low.
Final numbers are 197,567 returned and accepted VBM ballots out of 521,646 issued. A return rate of 37.9%. All the races will be decided today.
We're two days before Election Day. Department of Elections is reporting only 172,119 ballots have been returned and accepted ballots out 521,580 issued on E-2. 33.0%. Not even a third. All the close races are still up in the air.
Election Day is tomorrow, but you wouldn't know it from the current return rates reported by the SF Department of Elections as of E-1. Only 185,105 of the 521,600 vote-by-mail ballots issued have been returned and accepted, a return rate of 35.5%.
I predict the Department of Elections will receive an additional 80,000 to 100,000 vote-by-mail ballots postmarked by November 5 and arriving by November 12. This could mean any close local races may shift as these ballots are counted.
Just four days until Election Day (E-4) and we still haven't surpassed 150k returned and accepted VBM ballots in SF. Exact number is 146,692 out of 521,528 ballots issued (28.1% rate).
I am not sure we will surpass the 2016 VBM turnout rate at this point.
Saturday before Election Day or E-3 saw a very sizable jump in the number of returned and accepted VBM ballots in San Francisco. We're now at 159,406 accepted ballots out 521,543 issued, or 30.6%.
The number of challenged ballots is also increasing slowly. We're at 444 so far, nearly all of them because of signature issues.
E-5 brings us 13,521 ballots more returned and accepted to 133,636 VBM ballots out of 521,422 issued in San Francisco. We are now at 25.6%. This is still low compared to the November 2022 election, when we already had around 200k VBM ballot returned at E-5.
Unsurprisingly, the return and accepted rate in District 7 beats the citywide average. They're at 28.6%.
One week until Election Day and it's in E-7 that the number of returned and accepted ballots in SF finally surpasses 100k. 103,165 out of 521,166 is the current tally, or 19.8%.
For District 5, the accepted rate is surprisingly lower, at 18.7% (8,465 out of 45,212). Shocking given the intense supervisorial race there.
A decent jump this E-6 day. 23.0% of vote-by-mail ballots in San Francisco have been returned and accepted (120,115 out of 521,346 issued).
In District 9, which includes the Mission, Bernal Heights and Portolá, the return and accepted rate still trails the citywide average despite having an open supervisorial race. Only 9,966 of 48,275 VMB ballots have been returned, or 20.6%.
The E-9 numbers are looking a bit better, but we still haven't crossed the 100k threshold citywide. 94,693 VBM ballots have been accepted out of 520,846 issued. A returned and accepted rate just shy of 18.2%.
Surprisingly, the stats for District 1 aren't much higher despite the very contested supervisorial race, with only 18.8% VBM ballots having been returned and accepted. D1 Republicans have a 26.4% return rate.
E-8 numbers are largely the same. 96,595 returned and accepted ballots, or about 18.5%. I hope to see a jump tomorrow, maybe enough to surpass the 100k electoral milestone. Still very, very low.
@chema oh, sure, I'm not worried. You just seemed surprised at the low pre-election-day count, and I was guessing that my experience might be typical and there may be some slowdown in getting the votes counted.
The turnout rate for VBM ballots is super low in SF and all across the Bay. You have to go back to 2016 to see comparable numbers. We're just a bit higher than during the primary!