Riverside County election returns slowest in state

With the outcome of the 36th Congressional District race between Dr. Raul Ruiz and Congresswoman Mary Bono-Mack in the balance as well as other local races, voters are waiting to see the Riverside County Registrar’s office produce more election results.

While the registrar’s office has so far counted just under half a million ballots, there are still 180,000 ballots that need to be reviewed and counted. It doesn’t figure to be a quick process considering Riverside County was the slowest county in California to report returns from all of its precincts.

“The back log is with the ballot scanner and the paper ballot system we’ve been forced to use,” said Riverside County Registrar of Voters, Keri Verjil. “Since the decertifacation of the electric voting, our county has been suffering ever since we had to go back to those large placemat-size ballots.”

The registrar’s office still has to process 105,000 mail-in ballots, along with 60,000provisional and 18,000 damaged ballots.

The next updated results aren’t due to be released until Thursday at 6 pm.