SANTA ANA, Calif. — With a little more than 4,000 votes left to be counted as of Thursday, the Orange County Registrar of Voters is in the final stages of certifying the results of the recent election.

What You Need To Know

  • The Orange County Registrar of Voters was in the final stages of certifying mid-term election results

  • Registrar of Voters Bob Page told Spectrum News the election results should be certified by the Dec. 8 deadline

  • As of Thursday, there were a little more than 4,000 votes left to be processed

  • Several City Council and school board races were still too close to call

Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page told Spectrum News they were conducting two audits Thursday and began hand-counting ballots for the risk-limiting audit earlier this week. The risk-limiting audit is the method to confirm the reported election results are accurate.

"We worked this past Saturday and Sunday," said Page in an email. "If we do not complete the audits by [Friday], we will work this coming weekend."

Page said he's confident the registrar's office will certify the mid-term election results by the statutory deadline of Dec. 8.

"When I can certify the results is dependent on the completion of two random hand-count audits to confirm the accuracy of the election results and the post-election accuracy testing of all of the ballot scanners used in the election," Page said.

There were more than 1.8 million registered voters in Orange County. The registrar's office received nearly 994,000 ballots during the recent election. 

Throughout the ballot counting process, the registrar's office implemented multiple layers of security to ensure all the votes they received were safe, secure and counted accurately.

While most mid-term election winners are evident by the number of votes they received within a few days or weeks after the election, a few remaining races were still too close to call.

Several City Council and school board races across Orange County were coming down to the wire.

A few of the close races included:

  • In Anaheim, the District 2 race between Carlos Leon and Gloria Sahagún Ma'ae was separated by 73 votes, as of Thursday
  • In Los Alamitos, Emily Hibard led Randy Hill by five votes in the city's District 5 City Council race
  • In Villa Park, Jordan Wu led Donna Buxton by seven votes for the third City Council seat
  • Amy Phan had a 23-vote lead over John Gentile in Westminster's City Council District 1 election
  • Phu Nguyen had a nine-vote lead over Megan Irvine for the third seat in the Fountain Valley School District governing board