Newsom or not?
Tuolumne County voters share thoughts on recall election
Julia and Geoff Falkner, of Sonora, dropped off their ballots at the Tuolumne County Elections Office about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, with each voting to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom and elect Republican radio host Larry Elder to replace him.
Julia Falkner, whose name bore a resemblance to Republican candidate and former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer, said she opted instead for Elder because she believed he had a better chance of winning.
In most recent polls, Elder appears to be leading among the recall candidates with support of about 28%.
“He’d be the first black governor of California,” Julia Falkner, 57, said.
“I don’t think anyone can do as bad as Newsom,” added Geoff Falkner, 62.
The Falkners were among a steady procession of voters that dropped off ballots Tuesday morning at the county elections office in downtown Sonora, either inside the building or in a post-office-sized ballot box outside the automatic electric doors.
And they were representative of the majority of voters contacted by The Union Democrat on the recall Election Day, when California voters casted ballots for the rare decision of choosing to dump their governor and choose an alternative gubernatorial candidate to complete the rest of his first term of office, which ends in just over a year.
Gisele Schreyer, 59 of La Grange, visited a vote center at the Jamestown Community Hall in an American flag emblazoned t-shirt that said “I stand for the flag… I kneel for the cross.”
Schreyer, who is African-American, said she moved to California from Florida and said one of the many ills plaguing California was homelessness.
“This state was like coming to a foreign country,” she said. “I had never seen tent cities before.”
Schreyer, a registered independent, said she moved to La Grange two years ago. She voted for the recall and for Elder, she said.
“I call him Gruesome Newsom,” she said. “And my favorite, ‘Nuisance.’ “
Tuolumne County has consistently voted for Republican candidates in federal and gubernatorial elections going back decades.
Data regarding the party affiliation of voters who casted ballots was unavailable before the release of results Tuesday night, though the non-scientific sampling of voters contacted by The Union Democrat indicated that trend would continue.
Debbie Shoemaker, 61, of Sonora, said at the Sonora elections office that she voted for the recall and for Elder.
“I keep asking my liberal friends what Newsom has done, and no one answers me,” she said. “I don’t feel that he cares for the people in California, especially Northern California. I feel
he ignores us up here.”
However, there were still a few voters bucking the local trends who revealed the cultural gulf between voters on the left regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, which is considered a primary motivator why recall advocates achieved the rare feat of garnering enough public support to call a recall in the first place.
Carey Burke, 64, of Sonora, said at a drop box at the Tuolumne County Library he voted “No” because he appreciated that Newsom “is keeping us safe.”
“It is so easy to wear a mask,” he said. “President Trump could have recommended masks instead of calling it a Democratic hoax, and it would have cut the deaths by half.”
Two people separately contacted by The Union Democrat at the Jamestown vote center, a man and a woman, said they voted against the recall. They declined to share their name, citing a fear of judgement or reprisal in the community.
County Clerk and AuditorController Debi Bautista said she hoped to have around 22,000 votes processed by the time of a data release, scheduled for after 8 p.m. when the vote centers closed.
Bautista said drop boxes were picked up for processing before 4 p.m., but ones in Groveland and Mi-wuk Village would not be picked up until later and would not be included in the night’s results.
Depending on how many votes were dropped off at the vote centers, Bautista said, the total amount of ballots could increase by between 2,000 and 3,000.
As of 4 p.m., the vote center in Twain Harte logged the most votes with 111, Tuolumne with 99, Jamestown with 71 and Groveland with 38.
“I hope we have a really big number tonight,” Bautista said. “So far, we’re going good.”
Voter turnout among 35,450 registered voters was at about 64% and could rise closer to 70% by the time the election was certified, Bautista said.
Rebecca Turner, Calaveras County registrar of voters, told The Union Democrat at 2:30 p.m. over email there were 19,271 ballots received from 32,546 registered voters, a turnout of about 59%. Of those, 18,119 ballots were received through the mail and picked up at drop boxes and 1,152 were made at vote centers.
The votes were broken down as 343 in San Andreas, 505 in Valley Springs and 304 in Angels Camp.
“It has been a steady day of voting,” Turner said.
Statewide at about 4 p.m., the odds of Newsom remaining in office were high.
Political Data Inc., a company which tracks voting information, said there were 9,408,527 returned ballots out of 22,275,471 registered voters, or about 42% turnout. About 51% of those votes were from registered Democrats, 26% were from Republicans and 23% were from people with non-party affiliation.
Fivethirtyeight, a polling and political data analysis website, indicated a polling av
erage of 41.5% of Californians wanting to recall Newsom and 57.3% wanting to keep him in office through the end of his term next year.
There were about 15 voters at the Sonora elections office between 9:15 a.m. and 10 a.m., with most not wanting to share their thoughts on the recall or how they voted. Between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m., about the same amount of people visited the vote center in Jamestown with varying levels of engagement.
“No!” yelled one man in Sonora, who raised his open palm ahead of his face as he left the building.
Chris Standers, 57, of Sonora, declined to share his party affiliation or how he voted.
“Just to vote,” he responded, when asked about his primary motivation to participate in the recall election. “It seems pretty straightforward.”
Others were more than willing to share their perspective, with many of those who agreed to comment to The Union Democrat indicating they voted “yes” to recall Newsom..
“I’m not really happy how things are going in California,” Stacy Helbling, 46, of Sonora, said.
Helbling voted for Jenny Rae Le Roux, a business owner, who Helbling said she met in Redding. Helbling was joined by a younger woman who said she’s eligible to vote, but declined to provide whether she did or not.
Helbling, like many others, said she was concerned about potential voter fraud, but only outside of Tuolumne County, where she believed her vote was safe.
“I hope that it’s more fair here, but I’ve heard already in L.A. there’s been issues,” she said. “It feels a bit discouraging.”
Geoff Falkner said when he first entered the elections office, he checked to see if he had “voted twice,” indicating whether someone may have used his identity to vote. He learned that he had not yet cast a ballot.
“I’d love to have an audit, no matter who wins,” Julia Falkner said.
“I think the corruption started in California,” Geoff Falkner added.
Richard Moreci, 72 of Jamestown, said he was a registered Republican and voted for the recall, but declined to share the candidate he voted for.
Polls opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning.