Almost 6,000 local ballots in for Nov. 6 election
With just six days before the midterm elections, the Imperial County Elections Department has already begun counting the early vote-by-mail ballots.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the county had received just under 6,000 ballots, Imperial County Registrar Debbie Porter said Wednesday. That’s not to say that many have been counted so far; just those received in the mail.
Oct. 23 was the first day the county was allowed to open early mailins to review them, Porter said, and by Oct. 25, the first tallying of the votes began.
The results of the early balloting won’t be made public until 8 p.m. Nov. 6, she said.
In the meantime, early physical voting is occurring at the Elections Department during regular business hours. On Saturday and Sunday, elections staff will be in the lobby of the County Administrative Center in El Centro allowing early voting from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Porter said.
The county’s mobile voting unit will be out one more time before the election as well — at Saturday’s Cattle Call Chili Cook-off in Brawley from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
On election night, voters and those interested can expect some new changes to the county’s election website, including a grid listing all of the precincts in red; precinct numbers will turn green when the ballots are delivered, Porter said.
Also, there will be prominent signs on the website telling visitors what time the next election update will occur, she said.
Porter added the plan is to have all of the ballots counted within the first five days following the election, with certification of the election coming Nov. 29.
Earlier this week, the county ran the final two poll-worker training sessions. This year, Porter said, there are no shortage of workers, as some 226 poll workers will be available Nov. 6.
Even more so in Calexico, she said, as 30 to 60 students from the civics classes at Calexico High School volunteer at the city’s polling places for extra credit.
In the run-up to next week’s election, the Secretary of State’s office announced Sept. 7 that more than three quarters of eligible voters in the state registered to vote, the highest total number of registered voters heading into a gubernatorial general election in state history. For Imperial County, that number was up to nearly 70,000 as of Oct. 3.