This is the final weekend to vote in the November 3, 2026 election. If your ballot is still on the kitchen table, here is how to get it in, what we know about turnout so far, and how long the count is likely to take. Our full set of endorsements is at the bottom.
How to vote. Don’t forget to sign your ballot. Then pick whichever of these is easiest:
Use a drop box. The City’s 37 official drop boxes are open 24 hours a day until 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Vote or drop off at City Hall. The City Hall Voting Center is open Saturday, October 31 and Sunday, November 1 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday, November 2 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Election Day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Go to a polling place on Election Day. All 501 polling places are open Tuesday, November 3 from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. You can hand in your mail ballot at any of them.
Mail it by Tuesday, November 3. Your ballot needs no postage, but it must be postmarked by November 3 and arrive by November 10. Be careful on Election Day, because a ballot left in a mailbox that day may not be postmarked until the next day, and then it can’t be counted. If you mail it on Tuesday, the safest option is placing it in a USPS mailbox before the posted pickup time, but we recommend a ballot drop box.
Not registered? You can still register and vote in person at City Hall or at a polling place on Election Day.
Turnout is normal so far
As of October 29, 19.8% of registered voters had returned their ballots, compared with 20.1% at the same point before the November 2022 midterm. If voting keeps pace with 2022, final turnout would be about 61%.
Our turnout tracker updates as new data comes in.
How long the count will take
Expect final results to take a while. Even after all four election night reports, we expect only about half of the ballots to be counted. In June 2026, just 46% of ballots were counted on election night.
About half of all ballots were cast in the final two days in June, and the Department stops counting mail ballots on Monday (so it can print paper voter rolls for the polls) and doesn’t resume counting until Wednesday. Those late ballots have to wait, and each mail ballot’s signature is then checked by hand.
Here is the timeline, based on the Department’s results schedule and our research:
Election night:
8:45 p.m.: The first report, with most of the mail ballots processed before Election Day. (If your ballot is returned and processed before Monday, your vote is in this first count.) No other mail-in ballots will be counted this night.
9:45 p.m. and 10:45 p.m.: The second and third reports add votes only from polling places. In ranked-choice races, these two reports show only first-choice votes.
Later that night, usually no later than 11:30pm: The final report of the evening comes once results from all polling places are in.
Wednesday, November 4 through Friday, November 13: New results at 4 p.m. each day except Veterans Day, Wednesday, November 11. The Department will also publish a daily estimate of the ballots it has left to process.
Around November 10: About 90% of ballots counted. This is also the last day for mailed ballots to arrive.
November 25 to December 3: November 25 is the earliest date the Department can certify final results, and December 3 is the deadline.
So a close race on election night isn’t over, and a slow count is NOT a sign that anything has gone wrong. We do think it could be much faster without making voting any harder, and The Long Count lays out how other California counties have done it. If you’d like to help the count along, the most useful thing you can do is get your ballot in as early as you can.
Our endorsements at a glance
The full GrowSF Voter Guide explains every one of these.
San Francisco candidates
D2 Supervisor: Stephen Sherrill
D4 Supervisor: Alan Wong
D6 Supervisor: Matt Dorsey
D8 Supervisor: Darshini Patel. We strongly recommend reading our full write-up.
D10 Supervisor: Theo Ellington
Board of Education (vote for all three): Phil Kim, Tim Tung, Autumn Brown Garibay
Community College Board (vote for all three): Elijah Ball, Monroe Lace, Erwin Tam
Community College Board, Partial Term: Ruth Ferguson
BART Board, District 8: Sara Barz
Assessor-Recorder: Joaquín Torres
Public Defender: Mano Raju
San Francisco measures
Prop A (Fewer City commissions): Yes
Prop B (Public bank): No
Prop C (Housing fund): Yes
Prop D (Higher bar for ballot measures): Yes
Prop E (One rulebook for City purchasing): Yes
Prop F (Mayor runs City departments): Yes
Prop G (Reopen the Great Highway): No
Prop H (Muni parcel tax): Yes
Prop I (Transfer tax earmark): No
Prop J (Tax foreclosures): Yes
Prop RTM (Regional transit sales tax): Yes
State and federal candidates
Governor: Xavier Becerra
Lieutenant Governor: Fiona Ma
Secretary of State: Shirley Weber
Controller: Malia Cohen
Treasurer: Eleni Kounalakis
Attorney General: Rob Bonta
Insurance Commissioner: Ben Allen
Board of Equalization: John Pimentel
Superintendent of Public Instruction: Richard Barrera
State Assembly D17: Matt Haney
State Assembly D19: Catherine Stefani
House D11: Scott Wiener
House D15: Kevin Mullin
Supreme Court and Court of Appeal retention: Yes on all 13
State propositions
Prop 1 (Housing bond): Yes
Prop 2 (Bigger rainy day fund): Yes
Prop 3 (Extend high-earner income tax): Yes
Prop 4 (Public campaign financing): No
Prop 5 (Recall election changes): Yes
Prop 37 (Down payment loans for new homes): Yes
Prop 38 (Immunology research bond): No
Prop 39 (Voter ID): No
Prop 40 (Billionaire tax): No
Prop 41 (Audits of new special taxes): Yes
Prop 42 (Ban taxes on retirement accounts): Yes
Prop 43 (Two-thirds vote for citizen tax measures): Yes
Prop 44 (Spending rules for health clinics): No
Prop 45 (Faster environmental review): Yes
If this email helped you, forward it to a friend or neighbor.
Happy voting, from all of us at GrowSF.
- Steven, Sachin, and Jess
Paid for by GrowSF Voter Guide. Not authorized by any candidate, candidate’s committee, or committee controlled by a candidate. Financial disclosures are available at sfethics.org.