Local voters turn out in expected record numbers
Tuesday’s general election was among the most unusual Imperial County has ever seen, with the COVID-19 pandemic prompting a shift in how voting was conducted and a fiercely partisan presidential race casting skepticism over the entire process.
Nevertheless, the disputes over mail-in balloting and accusations of election rigging on a national level did not create disruption at the local polls. County Public Information Officer Linsey Dale said no negative reports had been received from any of the polling sites as of Tuesday afternoon,
As of Tuesday, the county had already received 28,334 of the 84,000 mail-in ballots it had sent out last month, which equated to about a 34 percent return before the polls even opened.
That still left votes being cast either by drop-off ballot or voting in person at a designated polling site, Dale said.
“It is difficult to estimate how many people will ultimately vote in this general election,” Dale said. “However, we anticipate our voter turnout percentage will exceed past elections.”
For in-person voting, there were 45 polling locations set up across the county. The highest number of those were in El Centro, follow by Calexico, Brawley, Imperial, Holtville and Heber. There was one poll each in the communities of Seeley, Calipatria, Westmorland, Niland, Salton Sea and Winterhaven.
All polling locations were open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.
Up until about 4:30 p.m., there a line of voters that extended past the front doors and spilled onto the sidewalk at Veterans Memorial Hall on South Imperial Avenue in Imperial.
Two of the voters in that line were Consuelo Lopez and her husband. Mrs. Lopez said she felt that the ability to vote was good for all Latinos in the United States.
“We thought everything went good,” Lopez said in Spanish. “And we’re looking forward to voting again.”
Imperial resident Robert Crockett has quite a bit of experience at the polls. Tuesday at the Veterans Hall was his 40th year of voting.
According to Crockett, voting is a civic duty as an American citizen, as it gives one the opportunity to choose the candidate who best represents that voter.
“I choose somebody to represent me, and that individual votes, so I need to be able to decide as to who’s going to represent me,” he said.
Crockett enjoys that, through voting, he gets an opportunity to directly influence the direction in which the state and his local government goes.
He said he also likes that he gets to vote for not only elected individuals, but also on decisions that will either directly or indirectly affect him and his community.
“If I can make decisions that are going to directly affect my dayto-day activity — like bills, propositions, taxes — then I want to be able to be a part of that, so
that I can say, ‘ Hey, this happened, and I was the one who decided on it,’” he said.
Compared to Crockett, 18-year-old Imperial resident Christopher Villavicencio was a newbie at the polls, but he was no less committed to the process.
Villavicencio said he felt it was important for people to come out and vote. It is both their right and their duty, he said.
“Because not everyone has that and not every country has that,” he said. “I think it’s important for our voice to be heard — for our opinions to be heard.”