San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
COUNTY POLLING SITES OPEN AS MAIL BALLOTS FLOOD IN
More S.D. voters join scores who heeded advice to act early
an election season noisy again with political differences, conducted in the shadow of a relentless pandemic, one message seems to have cut through the clamor and anxiety for many San Diego County residents. Vote early. Nudged by election officials who for the first time in state history sent all registered voters a mail ballot, more than 1 million in San Diego County have already turned theirs in. That’s half of all the ballots, a big uptick from the last presidential race in 2016, and there are still two more days until Election Day.
Saturday, more people got into the act.
It was the first of four consecutive in-person voting days at polling places around San Diego County, set up for those who prefer to vote the traditional way, in a booth, with a pen, surrounded by other citizens exercising their democracy. Voters have been able to vote in person at the county Registrar of Voters Office for much of October.
This is the first time the county has had its polling places open for four days, anin other change prompted by concerns about the novel coronavirus spreading where crowds gather. There are fewer sites — 235, down from the usual 1,500 — and they are in larger facilities, such as schools and community centers, to allow for social distancing. Masks are required.
Polling sites from the backcountry to the South Bay, in San Diego and North
County, saw what some poll officials said was a surprising number of voters showing up early.
At Shadow Hills Elementary School in Alpine, more than two dozen ballots were dropped off in the first hour or so after polls opened at 8 a.m. In El Cajon, voters were lined up outside the polls at Magnolia Elementary School before 8 a.m.
Some of the voters coming to the polls Saturday were turning in mail ballots, joining the hundreds of thousands already deposited with the registrar. Others said they were longtime in-person voters who wanted to avoid potentially lengthy lines on Tuesday.
And in a year of sky-high interest and unprecedented turnout, there were firsttime voters like 23-year-old Crystal Kamenar. After not voting in 2016, and following the earnest admonishment of friends, she cast her firstever ballot at the Walnut Grove Park Red Barn site in San Marcos.
“It was so much easier than I thought,” said Kamenar. “I expected to be waiting in line for hours, but it was so easy. And everyone clapped for me when it was over.”
The early-voting trend was welcomed by the county’s chief election official.
“The response so far has been tremendous,” said Michael Vu, the county’s registrar of voters. “People have been heeding our call and coalescing around the message that to vote safer is to vote by mail. If that trend continues, we should see smaller crowds at the polling places.”
Others came because they lost their mail ballots, or they don’t trust mail balloting, or because they’re traditionalists. So far, they’ve been a small number. Through the middle of last week, at the registrar’s office, about 6,700 people had voted in person.
“It’s the first year I voted early,” said El Cajon resident Earl Sanders outside the Magnolia Elementary School polling place. “I figured I would avoid the lines.” He said his ballot also carried a wider message.
“I hope everything works out for the nation,” Sanders said. “That’s what we’re voting for, is the nation. Not ourselves.”
After casting his ballot at the Norman Park Senior Center in Chula Vista, Kevin Hunter said he considered mailing his ballot in, but showed up on Saturday because he prefers voting in person. “It went pretty smooth,” he said.
Another man at the San Diego LGBT Community Center who did not want to be identified said he voted in person for a simple reason. “I want to make certain that my vote is counted,” he said.
The polling places had workers seated behind plexiglass barriers, plenty of hand sanitizer, and socially distanced voting booths — all extraordinary measures taken to guard against spreading the coronavirus. Those extra measures were welcomed by voters.
“It was easy and very well organized,” said Vicki Quirk, after voting at the Allied Gardens Recreation Center in San Diego.
Whatever the reason for using the polling places, Vu encouraged people not to wait until Election Day, when the lines are expected to be longest. (To find your assigned location, consult your election materials or the registrar’s website, sdvote.com.) They will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and Monday, and from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Vu said people returning mail ballots can also use any of the 126 official drop-off locations spread around the county and staffed by election workers. Hours vary today and Monday; all locations will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Ballots returned in the mail have to be postmarked on or before Election Day or they don’t get counted. Many experts are advising people not to go that route this late in the election.
If current trends continue, Vu said he expects the voter turnout will “be north of 80 percent.” That would put it in line with the 2016 result, 81 percent, and within striking distance of the alltime record, 84 percent, set in 2008.
Polling-place concerns
The coronavirus isn’t the only thing that has altered this election. It’s also been awash in conspiracy theories, unfounded claims about pervasive mail fraud, and concerns about voter intimidation at polling places.
President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign has been trying to recruit 50,000 volunteers to monitor the voting, saying in one video it hopes to have people at “every polling place in the country.” Trump echoed that call during the Sept. 29 debate with Joe Biden, urging his supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully.”
By mid-afternoon Saturday there were no reports of problems at any of the 235 polling sites countywide.
In San Diego County, any member of the public is allowed to stand in a designated spot and watch what goes on in a polling place. It’s illegal to interfere in the process, intimidate voters or impersonate an election official. No electioneering — doing anything that favors a particular candidate or proposition — is allowed within 100 feet of a poll.
Vu said election workers are trained to handle confrontations and will contact law enforcement if necessary. Suspicious behavior can be reported to the registrar’s office (858-565-5800), the Secretary of State (800345-VOTE) or the San Diego Law Enforcement Coordination Center (858-4957200).
The local FBI, which investigates election crimes when federal offices are on the ballot, encouraged people to call (858) 320-1800 or submit information on the Internet at tips.fbi.gov.
Local community groups, including the ACLU and Engage San Diego, are part of an Election Support and Protection Collaborative, which they said is designed to provide “fast, effective, and appropriate response to any election intimidation or other Election Day issues.” They’ve set up an “election protection” hotline at (866) OUR-VOTE.
Election officials believe all the talk of possible problems at polling places, coupled with concerns about the U.S. Postal Service’s ability to process the increase in mail ballots by Election Day, helped fuel the early surge in ballot returns.
During the 2016 general election, the county registrar counted 857,000 mail ballots (about 64 percent of the total vote). By Thursday morning, with six more days still left in the election, the county already had exceeded that total by almost 100,000 ballots. (At that point in time in 2016, about 400,000 fewer mail ballots had been received.)
“We have about 300,000 more registered voters now, but even taking that into account, the numbers are surpassing what occurred last time,” Vu said.
The returns so far this year in the county have been led by Democrats, who have returned about 58 percent of their ballots, according to an analysis by Political Data Inc., an Orange County numbers-crunching firm. About 47 percent of Republicans and 41percent of independents have voted.
By age, those over 65 lead the way, with 70 percent of their ballots returned. The others: ages 50 to 64, 54 percent; ages 35 to 49, 43 percent; and ages 18 to 34, 34 percent.
When to expect results
The registrar’s office will begin releasing results shortly after the polls close at 8 p.m. on Election Day. The first batch is always mail ballots, which are processed over the weeks as they come in but not yet counted. The huge number already returned means the initial tally Tuesday night will be larger than usual — up to 25 percent more, Vu said.
The additional days of inperson polling this year will also boost that number. Vu said the plan is to have all inperson ballots cast this weekend included in the first tally, too.
In recent elections, for a variety of reasons, 40 to 45 percent of all votes cast weren’t included in the results announced on election night and got counted in the days following. This year, Vu expects that to drop to 20 to 30 percent.
Most of those will be mail ballots returned in person on Election Day, or put in the mail and postmarked that day. Mail ballots take longer to count because they have to be scanned, sorted, and the signatures on the return envelopes verified before they can be opened and tabulated.
Vu said he expects up to 300,000 mail ballots countywide will be returned to polling places or drop-off locations on Election Day.
Provisional ballots also have to be counted, but there may be fewer of them this time. In the 2018 general election, when there were almost 100,000 provisional ballots, most were cast by people who forgot or misplaced their mail ballots. Others were cast by people who showed up at the wrong polling place.
This year, both those problems can be fixed at the polling places, Vu said, enabling people to cast ballots that will be counted on Election Night.
One looming question mark: How many of the county’s more than 250,000 residents who are eligible to vote but aren’t registered will show up in the next three days?
By law, they can register on the spot and vote provisionally; if their registration is deemed valid, their votes will be counted.
All that post-election Day activity sometimes alters the outcome of races. Candidates trailing in the results announced on election night pick up ground as the days go by.
In the March primary, that’s how Barbara Bry made it into the runoff with Todd Gloria for San Diego mayor, and how Will Moore qualified to face Joe Lacava for a seat on the City Council.
Vu said updates on close races will be posted every business day after 5 p.m. on the registrar’s website, starting Nov. 5, until the tabulations are finished.
His office has to finish its work and certify the results by Dec. 3.