NORTH COUNTY -- Getting Election Day results from North County precincts can take a frustratingly long time, often stretching well into the next morning before the final numbers are tallied.

The reason? Distance and the system of collecting and tabulating poll results, a three-step process that can seem maddeningly slow in this age of instant information, especially for candidates who want to know how they have fared.

"We didn't get our final numbers until after midnight," said Rua Petty, who waited for hours after the polls had closed to learn he had been elected to a seat on the Rainbow Municipal Water District board.

Petty's frustration stemmed from being a candidate in an area far from San Diego, where the votes were counted.

Election night tallies happen in two ways. The first count, posted by the San Diego registrar of voters on its Web site, comes shortly after the polls close and reflects all the absentee ballots received prior to Tuesday.

The timing of the following counts depends on when the results, recorded on computer disks, arrive at the registrar's office in Kearny Mesa.

The process of getting those disks there begins after the polls close at 8 p.m., according to election officials. Poll workers pack up all the equipment, including scanning machines containing the disks that count votes, and drive the materials to one of 50 collection points around the county.

After each collection point has gathered all the equipment from each of the multiple precincts it is responsible for, those materials are loaded onto a truck and driven to Kearny Mesa.

Once there, the disks are processed on a first-come, first-served basis, with the results posted as soon as they are tallied.

And that, says San Diego County Registrar Mikel Haas, means complete results for North County typically aren't known until hours after voting has ended because of the distances involved.

For candidates and their supporters, not to mention journalists trying to report the results, the wait can be hours.

Hass said there's simply no way around it. State law prohibits the electronic transfer of election results, meaning county registrars are forbidden from establishing tabulation stations around the county to speed up the reporting.

In Encinitas on Tuesday night, the results of a closely watched ballot measure on the proposed redevelopment of the Paul Ecke Ranch weren't known until after 11 p.m.

There were two collection sites for Encinitas. At one, the first of 24 precincts it was responsible for arrived at 8:52 p.m., and the last at 10:18 p.m., Haas said. The truck with all those results arrived in Kearny Mesa at 11:05 p.m.

At the second Encinitas collection site, the first of 21 precincts also arrived at 8:52 p.m. and the last at 10:07 p.m. That truck was in Kearny Mesa at about 10:45 p.m.

The results of the Ecke proposition, which voters rejected, were posted at 11:15 p.m.

In the Fallbrook and Bonsall area, the results of the Rainbow election and a school construction proposition weren't known until early Wednesday morning.

For Rainbow Water District candidate Petty, while no relation to singer Tom Petty, he can relate to the rocker's refrain from "The Waiting," which says that "the waiting is the hardest part."

"We're just a small little political division up here and we were waiting for hours," he said. "We didn't get the numbers until after midnight when it seemed like other areas were getting results. It was frustrating."

And when the county reintroduces touch-screen voting next June, Haas said there is no reason to believe the ballot counting and reporting will occur any faster.

"The closing procedures are incrementally faster, but we still have to get the memory cards from those machines to the registrar's office to be counted," he said.

Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.