Election Day for Prop. 50 is almost here in LA County. Then the ballot counting begins.

For the past month, Los Angeles County residents have been casting their ballots as part of California’s special election on redistricting. All that will grind to a halt Tuesday night when voting ends.

That night, the election will pivot from voting to ballot counting, a process that will take days, if not weeks, to complete. In California, a state notorious for taking a long time to make election results official, the final results won’t be certified until the first half of December.

Mike Sanchez, a spokesperson for the L.A. County registrar’s office, said the actual counting of ballots is quick. But state law provides time for voters to correct, or “cure,” a ballot if issues arise.

For example, if a voter forgets to sign their signature on a vote-by-mail envelope or the signature doesn’t match the one on file with elections offices, they’re contacted and given a chance to remedy the issue.

“Contrary to popular belief, we do count ballots very fast,” Sanchez said. “But state law allows voters to cure (ballots).  We do conduct outreach to those voters, and legally, the voters have until we certify the election results to return those” corrected ballots.

In addition, although mail-in ballots must be postmarked by Election Day — Nov. 4 this year — they have up to seven days after Election Day to arrive at local elections offices for the ballot to count.

All this adds to the time it takes to process and count every single ballot.

During the 2024 general election, about 97% of ballots in L.A. County were counted within a week of the election, Sanchez said.

And even after ballot counting ends, election results still need to be certified.

Local registrars’ offices have 30 days from the end of the election to certify their county’s results. The California secretary of state has until Dec. 12 to certify the statewide results.

As far as when the public can expect to start seeing some numbers, the L.A. County registrar’s office plans to post several results updates throughout election night.

Polls close at 8 p.m. The initial batch of results, expected around 8:30 p.m., will reflect vote-by-mail ballots received before Election Day. The second batch of results, expected around 8:45 or 9 p.m., will include the mail-in ballots received before election day plus all votes cast at vote centers before Tuesday.

Later updates that night will include any additional mail-in ballots received before Tuesday that weren’t captured in the first batch of results, plus ballots received or cast on Election Day.

Updates may very well continue past midnight, as they have in previous elections.

Ballot counting continues in the days following the election. These later counts will include ballots postmarked by Nov. 4 but weren’t received by the registrar’s office until after Election Day.

As of Thursday, Oct. 30, L.A. County had an estimated 5.9 million registered voters — by far the most of any county in California — and more than 1.1 million ballots had been cast by county residents, according to the California secretary of state’s office.

California has more than 23 million registered voters, about a quarter of whom have cast ballots as of the latest tally on Friday afternoon.

And according to newly released voter registration numbers by the secretary of state’s office, as of Oct. 20, roughly 45% of registered voters in the state are Democrats. Another 25% are Republicans, and nearly 23% are “no party preference.”

In L.A. County, 51% of the roughly 5.9 million registered voters identified as Democrat, 19% as Republican and 23% as “no party preference.” The breakdown was the same in early September during the last voter registration report.

The 20-point voter registration advantage that Democrats have statewide over Republicans likely explains why recent surveys have consistently shown Proposition 50, the sole item on the Nov. 4 special election ballot, polling ahead.

Prop. 50 asks voters whether to adopt new congressional maps that would remain in effect through 2030 and impact the next three congressional elections — in 2026, 2028 and 2030.

The maps would position Democrats to pick up five extra U.S. House seats — a counter to similar gerrymandering efforts by Republicans in red states seeking to secure enough GOP seats to assure that Republicans retain control of the House after next year’s midterm elections.