Official election results will not be available until more than a month after Nov. 4 because of provisional ballots, but Bernalillo County races could be called before then.
Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver said every vote will be counted but that provisional ones will go through a verification process that can take up to 34 days.
Toulouse Oliver said unofficial results are usually used to decide races on Election Night, but if there is not a strong enough majority for a candidate, provisional ballots are taken into consideration to decide the winner.
"That's part of the reason why people have to wait so long for the results, because provisional votes have to be verified," she said.
Secretary of State Mary Herrera said provisional ballots have been the deciding factor in past races.
She said the 2006 race between Heather Wilson and Patricia Madrid for the House of Representatives seat was so close it could not be called on Election Night.
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"We couldn't call a winner, so we had to finish counting the provisional ballots, and after the provisional ballots, Heather Wilson won," she said. "It was a close race, and that happened last presidential (election)."
Herrera said provisional ballots are given to residents whose names don't appear on a precinct's voter list on Election Day.
Some provisional voters will have come to the wrong polling place, and some will be newly registered voters whose paperwork is yet to be processed, she said.
"That means that they may not be on the roster on time in the system," Herrera said.
Herrera said 17,000 voters statewide turned in provisional ballots in the previous general election. She said the majority of them came from Bernalillo County.
The county's No. 1 task is to begin qualifying provisional ballots as soon as possible after Election Day, Herrera said.
Toulouse Oliver said there are two steps in the qualifying process: The county must verify provisional voters' registration and ensure that their vote isn't counted twice, and then the state has to repeat the process, she said.
"We have to make sure that anybody who came in and voted on a provisional ballot didn't also vote absentee or early voting or at another precinct," she said.
The county has 10 days to qualify the provisional ballots before they are sent to the state, she said, and the state takes 24 days to check the counties' numbers and make sure they add up.
Herrera said the county clerks have so much work to do within those days that they might request an extension for provisional ballot qualification in the future.
"It's getting impossible for Bernalillo County to complete their canvass in 10 days," Herrera said. "I'm thinking we are going to have to look at that and ask the Legislature to maybe turn it into 12 days, because they have to do all of this just for the provisional."
The county will send a letter to voters whose provisional ballots could not be counted, Toulouse Oliver said.
Provisional voters can also check if their vote was counted on the secretary of state's Web site.
Toulouse Oliver said the system for counting provisional ballots is efficient and that there shouldn't be a delay in getting results.
"We have a really good process in place. During the primary election, we were able to get these results and compile them very quickly, and we are going to hope to try to do the same thing for this election," she said.
