Reporting Preliminary Results after the Close of Polls on Election Night

The Department intends to release the first preliminary summary report of election results at approximately 8:45 p.m. This report will provide the results from the vote-by-mail ballots that the Department receives and processes before Election Day.

With this first summary report, the Department will also release a preliminary Statement of the Vote, a ranked-choice report with ballot image files, a precinct turnout report, and a neighborhood turnout report.

At approximately 9:45 p.m., the Department will release a second summary report of results that includes votes cast at the polling places. At approximately 10:45 p.m. the Department intends to issue a third summary report of results.

After all polling places have reported, the Department will release a final summary report, as well as a second preliminary Statement of the Vote, a ranked-choice report with ballot image files, a precinct turnout report, and a neighborhood turnout report.

Election results will be available from the following sources:

• San Francisco Government Television – SFGTV, Channel 26, will report San Francisco summary results throughout the night as a banner during SFGTV programming
• Election Results Summary page on sfelections.org – all results reports, including the preliminary Statement of the Vote, the precinct turnout, and the neighborhood turnout, will be posted on the Department’s website
• City Hall, North Light Court – a large screen will display SFGTV programming that will show San Francisco summary results; printed copies of the summary results report will be available at approximately 8:45 p.m., with updates available at approximately 9:45 p.m., 10:45 p.m., and 11:30 p.m.
• Department of Elections, City Hall, Room 48 – printed copies of results reports will be available at the Department’s front counter (the preliminary Statement of the Vote will not be printed due to its length)

The Department will post a sample “zero” summary report on the Election Results Summary on October 10. This zero report will include a navigation path to the webpages that will display the preliminary results posted on Election Night and after Election Day.

Reporting Preliminary Results after Election Day

Ballot processing continues after Election Day until the Department has counted the votes on all ballots. At 4 p.m. every day on which the ballots are counted, the Department will release updated results reports. On any days during which no ballots are counted, the Department will post a notice on sfelections.org stating that no update will be issued for a specified day or days.

During the first and last reports on Election Night, and at 4 p.m. on any day after Election Day during which ballots are counted, the Department will release versions of the following reports:

• Statement of the Vote, showing a precinct-by-precinct breakdown of votes cast at polling places and by mail, including neighborhood and district breakdowns in the following formats:
• PDF
• Excel
• TSV (tab-separated values)
• Raw text
• Ranked-choice reports for all ranked-choice voting contests, including those contests for which there are majority leaders, showing elimination of candidates until only two candidates remain, in the following formats:
• Ballot image file in raw text format
• Round-by-round elimination reports in HTML table format
• Detailed round-by-round elimination reports in PDF format
• Neighborhood Turnout Report
• Precinct Turnout Report
• Precinct Turnout Map

Reporting Final Election Results

The Department will release final election results no later than December 8 as required by the California Elections Code, section 15372.

After certifying the election results, the Department will deliver the certified statement of the results and associated attachments to the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors and the Secretary of State, and will post the documents on sfelections.org.

Additionally, the Department will post the final results outside the Department’s office, City Hall, Room 48, as well as issue a press release and Twitter and Facebook notifications that the election results are certified.

Cryptographic Hashing of Results Files

SHA512 cryptographic hashes will be available for results files posted on sfelections.org. "SHA" is an acronym for "Secure Hash Algorithm"; SHA512 is the strongest cryptographic hash in the SHA2 family. After a file has been downloaded, SHA512 can help verify that the received file is exactly the file that was sent. If the file downloaded from sfelections.org has the same SHA512 hash value as the SHA512 hash value provided for that file, then the file is complete and the election results did not change during the download. More information about SHA512 is available on sfelections.org in the SHA512FAQs.

Why Election Results Change After Election Night

On Election Night, the Department of Elections reports results from all polling places. However, there are ballots that cannot be processed on Election Night, including vote-by-mail ballots that the Department received on Election Day and provisional ballots cast at polling places. All aspects of the election process are open to public view, so candidates, members of the media, and the public may observe signature verification and processing of vote-by-mail and provisional ballots.