OFFICIALS CONTINUE TO TALLY VOTES IN COUNTY
Officials: Turnout appears low, though mail ballots will continue to be tallied in coming days
SANTA CRUZ >> County election officials are busy at work as they process vote totals from Tuesday's statewide primary, but they say turnout numbers so far are strikingly low.
According to Santa Cruz County Clerk Tricia Webber, only 18% of Santa Cruz County's nearly 168,000 registered voters had returned their ballots as of Monday afternoon. These ballots were received by early in person voting, vote by mail and ballot drop box locations.
“Statewide primaries typically do have a lower percentage of turnout than the general does,” Webber told the Sentinel on Tuesday morning. “But seeing us not even at 20% is significantly low.”
Webber said that Santa Cruz County's lowest primary turnout percentage was 34.8% from 2014, though she remains hopeful that the county will exceed that figure given the overwhelming number of vote by mail and ballot drop box returns it expects to receive.
“Historically we have a higher rate of return of people who are in the vote by mail category than we do of in-person voting,” Webber said. “I am optimistic that we will get into the 30% turnout range and hoping we'll be over that 34%.”
Webber said that as of about 11 a.m. on Tuesday, 623 county residents had voted in person while more than 5,000 vote-by-mail ballots had been received at that point the same day. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked on or before June 7 and received by the clerk's office no later than June 14 to be considered valid, according to Webber.
Despite signals of relatively low voter turnout, there is no shortage of competitive races and hotly contested measures for voters to consider.
Two seats on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisor are soon to be vacated — District 3 and District 4, which are currently held by Ryan Coonerty and Greg Caput. The candidates running to replace Coonerty are Shebreh Kalantari Johnson, Justin Cummings and Ami Chen Mills. Kalantari-Johnson and Cummings both currently sit on Santa Cruz City Council and Chen Mills is a former journalist and nonprofit director. District 3 stretches from Live Oak through the City of Santa Cruz and northward into Davenport and Bonny Doon.
In South County, three candidates are on the ballot for supervisor District 3: Felipe Hernandez, Jimmy Dutra and Ed Acosta. Dutra and Hernandez have run for the seat before, but both were defeated by Caput. Dutra currently sits on the Watsonville City Council and was mayor in 2021. Hernandez has also previously served on Watsonville City Council and was mayor in 2016. Acosta is on the County Office of Education's Board of Trustees and the Watsonville Planning Commission.
One of the three candidates in each supervisor race must receive a simple majority of the vote to declare victory in the June election. If none earn more than the 50% threshold, the top two vote-getters move on to a runoff in November.
There are also three state Assembly races with district lines that include parts of Santa Cruz County — Districts 28, 29, 30. The top two vote-getters in each race will advance to the November general election.
Voters will also weigh in on several local ballot measures. The Measure D Greenway Initiative in particular has been highly polarizing and has received a great deal of community attention. Measure D calls for an amendment to Santa Cruz County's General Plan by remaking most of the Branch Rail Line into a multi-use trail, according to the county website. Those opposing the measure seek to keep options available for both rail and trail.
Other measures include Measure B, a county transient occupancy tax; Measure C, a county tax on disposable cups; measure E, which would establish six Santa Cruz City Council districts and a directlyelected mayor; and Measure F, which would raise the City of Santa Cruz's sales tax.
Amidst the Election Day frenzy, Webber cautioned against hasty predictions and advised that her team will be processing votes as quickly as it can in the coming days. The official election certification date is July 5.
“What you see as the results for election night, do not necessarily mean that those are the final results,” Webber said. “There are still a lot of votes out there to add to the totals. People should not just take election night as the end-all. Keep watching and know that on the 5th of July we will have the certified results.”
While polls closed after the Sentinel's print deadline, election coverage will continue online. To follow along with the Sentinel's coverage, visit www.santacruzsentinel.com.