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Thousands of vote-by-mail ballots are stacked in the Placer County Elections Office waiting to be processed and then counted, as part of the democratic process. 

There are crucial and legal steps that the teams reviewing mail-in ballots must adhere to in California to ensure every vote is accurately counted, there are no duplicate votes, and the signature on the ballot matches the name it's been assigned. 

The process is happening in counties all over the country and across California, especially, due to the fact that all active registered voters in the state receive a vote-by-mail ballot. A shift from two decades in the state, according to voting experts. 

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Despite the rain Tuesday, election officials in the Sacramento region say early impressions of voter turnout are relatively consistent with the rates of voting in midterm elections. 

Ballots will continue to be counted and tabulated over the following days and weeks, so a fuller picture of turn-out won’t be available immediately – ballots postmarked by Election Day may arrive up to a week later, meaning a more solid snapshot of turn-out won’t be available until at least Nov. 15.  

Early waves of reported results will reflect vote-by-mail ballots turned in early and ballots cast in-person at election sites. 

In Sacramento County, spokesperson Janna Haynes said around 6:30 p.m., roughly 11,000 people had voted in-person on Tuesday — “a drop in the bucket in comparison to our complete voter turnout.”

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Voters across Greater Sacramento have been turning in their ballots for the midterm elections before and on Election Day across several fronts — mail-in ballots, in-person voting and early votes — and may not be solidified for weeks. 

Although California has aimed to make the voting process more accessible — most recently by passing legislation that sends every registered voter a vote-by-mail ballot in 2021 — there are still several barriers complicating participation. 

Take vote-by-mail, which Kim Alexander with the California Voter Foundation says favors older homeowner voters over others, regardless of their registered party, because not everyone is comfortable using the mail and not everyone has a reliable address.

That can disproportionately affect those with unstable housing — like college students, who may move around a lot.

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Some candidates nationwide have indicated they will not necessarily accept the results of the 2022 midterm races, and election officials are dealing with harassment. Between 1000-1500 threats have been reported to the Department of Justice in the last year. 

“All of this has been a political manipulation,” says Mindy Romero, founder and director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. “It started in 2016 in earnest … we saw the president of the United States at the time, and many others since, who’ve really used this for political gain.”

Romero also points to increased political polarization as a cause — seeing people of the other political party as “really just absolutely counter to who we are, and potentially evil.”