Early election returns have painted a picture in a number of local races.

But that picture may change drastically in the coming days as the San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters continues to work through the thousands of vote-by-mail and provisional ballots that have yet to be included in official counts – reminding everybody that things are far from over. 

According to Management Analyst Brian Gegarian, the registrar’s office will announce the number of outstanding vote-by-mail and provisional ballots today, and will continue to count those ballots as they work towards the first official update to the unofficial results – which is expected to be posted to the registrar’s website on Friday.  

The results schedule – the official listing of when updates will be posted between now and when the election results are certified and set to the California Secretary of State for final recording – is also expected to be released today on the registrars’ website, and can be viewed by visiting www.sjrov.org. 

A number of local races, including the Manteca mayor’s race, are separated by less than 200 votes, and in races with multiple candidates where more than one is elected to serve, an even smaller margin. As part of the county’s attempt to tabulate the number of outstanding ballots, where those ballots originated from will also be figured out – a number that could prove to be very important in determining the status of those razor-thin local races, some of which have changed leads multiple times between when the first returns came in and around 1:30 a.m. the following morning. 

While other counties experienced issues pertaining to voting – Stanislaus County, for example, had to file a request with the court to extend voting hours after a shortage of provisional ballots and even ballots in some locations led to some people being turned away from polls – there were no major reported issues in San Joaquin County. 

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.