By Jorge Casuso

November 9, 2022 -- An estimated 1 million ballots countywide -- most of them mailed in -- remain to be counted in Tuesday's general election, according to the LA County Registrar.

That would bring the total number of ballots cast to more than 2.3 million, of which 1,309,093 have been counted and the results released, election officials said.

That leaves an estimated 1,006,300 ballots left to be processed -- 985,000 of them Vote by Mail ballots, 21,000 Conditional Voter Registration ballots and 21,000 Provisional ballots.

It is not known how many of those ballots were cast in Santa Monica and Malibu, and voters will have to wait until Friday for a local update of results, County election officials said.

"Outstanding estimates are Countywide and are not currently available by jurisdiction as ballots are received and processed in batches from throughout the County," the Registrar's office said in a press release Wednesday.

The outstanding ballots could reconfigure the results of several Santa Monica races that remain close after election day results were released early Wednesday morning.

In some cases, however, candidates or ballot measures have built large leads that will be difficult to overcome ("Torosis, Zwick Lead Early Voting; Negrete in Battle to Keep Seat," November 8, 2022).

The bulk of the mail-in ballots that have not been processed were received through Election Day by the United States Postal Service or returned in person at a Ballot Drop Box or Vote Center, officials said.

The estimated number of those ballots could grow as the Registrar continues to accept ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and received through next Tuesday, election officials said.

The first post-Election Night results update will be released on Friday, officials said.

The County Registrar "prioritizes the timely processing, verifying, and counting of outstanding ballots in the Official Election Canvass," officials said in a statement.