Sentinel staff report–
Wonder what happened to your vote-by-mail ballot after you put it in the mail or dropped it off? Under California Election law, you can check to see if your vote was counted if you voted by mail — and in Citrus Heights and Sacramento County, you can check online in less than a minute.
As of the latest vote count update, at 1:23 a.m. Wednesday, election officials reported 166,826 ballots had been counted in Sacramento County, with an estimated 216,000 remaining to be counted. Votes will continue to be counted over the coming weeks, with the next update scheduled for March 6 at 4 p.m., according to the county’s election website.
To check on the status of your vote-by-mail ballot in Sacramento County, voters can follow the three steps below. Those in other counties can visit the Secretary of State’s website for links to each county’s website to check the status of their vote-by-mail ballot.
- Visit the Sacramento County Voter Registration and Elections website.
- Select “registration” from the top menu and click “registration status,” or go direct by clicking here.
- Enter your house number, zip code and date of birth and click submit.
You will then be shown the current status of your ballot, as well as your voter history for prior elections.
Sacramento County and several dozen other counties have also now partnered with BallotTrax to allow voters to sign up for free text, voice or email alerts to track the status of their vote-by-mail ballot. To sign up, voters can go to wheresmyballot.sos.ca.gov and enter their first and last name, date of birth and zip code.
The Sacramento County Registrar of Voters previously confirmed with The Sentinel that ballots dropped off on Election Day will likely still show up as “not received” on the county’s website. Once a signature has been checked on a ballot envelope, the status will be updated.
Additional vote count updates are scheduled to continue being released each Tuesday and Friday, until election results are officially certified next month.
A two-minute overview of what happens to a ballot after elections officials receive it can be viewed in a Youtube video uploaded by The Sacramento Bee.
