PUBLISHED 11/07/09 ------

Mail-in votes were supposed to have made a huge difference in this election by streamlining the process for all concerned.

Indeed they have had an impact — positively and negatively. Mail votes have helped increase voter turnout, but processing problems  have gummed up the works.

These advance ballots, once known as absentees, were supposed to have allowed county election offices throughout the state to count as many as half the votes prior to Election Day, releasing the results as soon as polling places closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

But three days later, more than 30,000 mail ballots are still left to be counted in Kern County, causing the candidates in at least three races to delay to harbor doubts about their success or failure.

Kern County election officials can’t even say whether the mail-in and provisional ballots still waiting to be counted will be relevant in the 30th Assembly District race, where Republican Danny Gilmore holds a significant but not insurmountable 2,419-vote lead.

The greater the number of uncounted ballots from the northwestern portion of the county, which lies in the 30th District, the better for Democrat Fran Florez, who ran very strong in that part of the district. But those uncounted ballots could be from almost anywhere in Kern County.

The Kern High School District and Kern County Superior Court races could also be affected by late ballots.

Voter turnout was admirable — 63 percent at the moment, already one of the highest figures among valley counties, and potentially as high as 76 percent once all the votes are counted. Election officials had hoped for 80 percent, given the ballot’s controversial and highly charged races.

But considering the expectations, shouldn’t elections departments have been better prepared?

The problem is not confined to Kern County. Election experts say between 2.6 million and 3 million ballots remain to be tabulated around the state — mostly absentee ballots that arrived too late to count or were dropped at polling places, or provisional ballots.

Despite the huge collection of uncounted ballots, officials in most California counties have stopped issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Proposition 8, which would ban gay marriage, is ahead by about 504,000 votes statewide, but Los Angeles County alone had 619,000 unprocessed ballots left to count at mid-week. The Secretary of State doesn’t plan to certify the vote until Dec. 13.

Given all the advances in voting technology, you’d think we’d have more answers. The lesson of this election: With mail ballots continuing to gain in popularity and the overall electorate apparently having been reenergized, we’ll need more workers. Maybe a lot more.