Voter surge surprises clerks Slim margins in most Yuba County races
More voters and more people voting for the first time
Carlye Mitchell of Marysville voted with her two children, Claire, three, and George, two and a half months, in tow at the Yuba County Government Center in Marysville. “We talked to our oldest, who is five years old, and told her that we’re very lucky to get the right to vote because a lot of other places don’t have a say in how their government works.”
Sutter County voters managed to surprise the Elections Office during the midterms election Tuesday.
Clerk-recorder Donna Johnston said she was surprised by the number of people saying it was the first time they had ever voted in their life (and they weren’t millennials).
Her staff was kept busy with the large number of same-day voter registrants – this was the first year the practice has been done in Sutter County, and the midterms saw a higher number than the June general election, Johnston said.
By the end of the night, all precincts had been counted, leaving only votes-by-mail and provisional ballots to be counted. Of 46,087 registered voters, 16,720, or 36.28 percent were counted by night’s end.
“There was a pretty good number of young people coming in to vote for their first time,” Johnston said.
She said the elections lobby was bustling with lengthy lines most of the day – a good sign for turnout.
“We’re happy to see people voting,” she said.
– Rachel Rosenbaum
End of Election Day tallies showed Yuba County supervisor incumbents in the lead, with one race separated by a couple hundred votes and the other much less. Still, results are expected to change as more votes are counted over the coming days.
Only about 24 percent of the votes had been tallied at the time of publication. There are 33,754 registered voters in Yuba County.
A total of 19 of the 33 precincts had reported and about 19 percent of the vote-by-mail ballots were counted at the time of publication. Only about 1,600 ballots cast at the polls had been counted, or about 5 percent of the Election Day turnout.
The major local races in the county includes Supervisor District 1, Supervisor District 5, two seats on the Marysville City Council, as well as two measures.
– Jake Abbott