Tag Archives: voter turnout

Registration Numbers Climbing – Vote Early to Avoid Crowds!

Posted on October 7, 2008 by Kriselle Laran| 1 Comment

San Mateo County’s 145,987 registered permanent Vote by Mail voters got to start voting Oct. 6, as Vote by Mail ballots hit mailboxes this week.  With an anticipated turnout of over 80%, people who vote early can avoid the expected 149,000 or more voters who’ll turn up at the polls.

According to Vote by Mail unit supervisor Melinda Dubroff, Vote by Mail voters can get voting out of the way and not have to deal with crowds and also help the elections process while they’re at it.

“The more people Vote by Mail and cast ballots early, the more ballots we can open and count for the Election Night report.  If voters all wait until Election Night to vote at the polls, it will take our office until the end of the Canvass to report them all,” Dubroff said.

In 1999, San Mateo County had 66% of eligible voter registered, and the number has grown to about 76% today.  Right now, 369,534 San Mateo County residents are registered to vote.  With numbers climbing every day, its not far fetched to assume that the numbers could exceed 375,000 by the end of the voter registration period on Oct. 20.

“We’ve issued 11,715 voter registration cards since Aug. 1 to individuals who are conducting voter registration drives within their community.  This doesn’t even include the efforts of the League of Women Voters, who ensures that voter registration cards are always fully stocked at city halls, libraries, post offices, and other governmental agencies throughout the county,” said Dubroff.

People who wish to conduct voter registration drives can come into either Elections Office and fill out the appropriate forms to distribute and collect voter registration cards for later submission to our office.

Dubroff said, “The local post offices and other offices that have voter registration cards are often bombarded with requests for individual registrations, and can’t maintain enough inventory for voter registration drive needs.  We also have to keep record of the various outreach efforts, which is made possible by routing all registration drive requests to the Elections offices.”

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Posted in Ballots, Election Day/Night, Elections Office, Outreach, Overseas Voting, Polling place, Results, Vote By Mail, Vote counting, Voter registration, Voting, eSlates, early voting

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It’s certified: Record statewide turnout on Feb. 5

Posted on March 18, 2008 by Rebekah Gordon| Leave a comment

There has been much chatter in the news yesterday and today about the now-verifiable record turnout in California for the Feb. 5 Presidential Primary.

The numbers are all part of the California Secretary of State’s Statement of the Vote for the Feb. 5 Presidential Primary Election, a meta compilation of certified results from each of California’s 58 counties. It includes results from our Statement of the Vote issued on March 4.

Nearly 9.1 million votes were cast on Feb. 5, representing an unusually high turnout of nearly 58 percent. When you look at the numbers over time, that’s the highest turnout for a primary since 1980. But it’s by no means a record, as turnout was nearly 73 percent in June 1976.

Similar to what we saw in San Mateo County, it was the highest statewide turnout for a primary this century. As the Sacramento Bee noted, this election garnered about 1.2 million more votes than the presidential primary in 2000, which held the previous primary record for absolute number of voters.

The statement breaks how presidential candidate votes were cast by county and congressional district. You’ll note that San Mateo County voted 44.5 percent for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., 50.9 percent for U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and 51.1 percent for U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

There are couple of other interesting trends – for better or for worse – that the numbers further reveal that we think are worth pointing out.

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Posted in Reform, Results, Voter registration

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Statement of the Vote is here, Feb. 5 turnout not quite 60%

Posted on March 4, 2008 by Rebekah Gordon| 1 Comment

Feb. 5 Presidential Primary Statement of the VoteWell, we have some opening of the mouth and inserting of the foot to do.

Earlier this year we spouted all kinds of predictions about record turnout in San Mateo County for the Feb. 5 Presidential Primary. Elections Manager David Tom told the media he thought turnout would be more than 60 percent. Our own Chief Elections Officer Warren Slocum predicted in a press release issued from our office that San Mateo County’s turnout” may reach as high as 71 percent.”

Yeah, so we were a little off.

Now that the Statement of the Vote is complete, we can officially say that turnout in San Mateo County for the Feb. 5 Presidential Primary was 59.29 percent. A very high number, certainly, but no record smasher. Kudos to the nearly 211,697 of you who made your choices heard in this historic election, but where were the rest of you?

To be fair, turnout far exceeded the 48.61 percent turnout seen in the 2004 Presidential Primary Election. It also surpassed the 55.12 percent turnout for the Statewide Special Election in Nov. 2005, and the 57.49 percent turnout for the 2000 Presidential Primary Election. That is definitely something to be proud of.

But we haven’t had turnout above 60 percent in a presidential primary in San Mateo County since 1980, and we couldn’t quite make it over that elusive threshold this time around either.

We have few answers as to why; do you?

It remains to be seen what official statewide voter turnout will be and whether it will, in fact, break any records. Now that all 58 counties have certified their votes (the deadline was today), the California Secretary of State has until March 17 to compile all that data into a meta Statement of the Vote and certify statewide results.

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Posted in Results, Vote By Mail, Vote counting

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Turnout hits 52%, and we’re still counting provisional ballots

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Rebekah Gordon| Leave a comment

In case you didn’t see it, we released updated results on Wednesday from the Feb. 5 Presidential Primary, and turnout is now at more than 52 percent.

It still isn’t the more than 60 percent turnout that Elections Manager David Tom initially predicted, and it still hasn’t surpassed the more than 55 percent turnout seen in Nov. 2005′s Special Statewide Election. But at least it now exceeds the turnout from the 2004 Presidential Primary.

Reconciling provisional ballot envelopes and ballots at the Elections Office

Despite all the punditry to the contrary, it’s becoming a tougher sell that this one will be a record as far as San Mateo County is concerned. But it remains to be seen before we can be certain. Vote by Mail ballots are more or less done, but we’re still counting votes from provisional ballots. Another vote count will be released at 5 p.m. on Feb. 19.

Melinda Dubroff, who is overseeing the post-Election Night count, said that about 12,000 provisional ballots were cast on Feb. 5. Each of those green ballot envelopes must be reconciled by hand before the votes on each provisional ballot can be counted.

“That is a big amount for us,” Dubroff said. “The provisionals are kind of like a little expedition. Did they vote in the right party’s primary, did they go to the right precinct?”

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Posted in Ballots, Results, Vote By Mail, Vote counting

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Updated results; turnout creeps up to 46 percent

Posted on February 8, 2008 by Rebekah Gordon| Leave a comment

As promised, we released updated election results at 5 p.m. today. Check them out!

“I Voted” stickers piled up at the polls during the Feb. 5 Presidential Primary Election

While we don’t believe these updated results will change the projected outcome of any race – all four local measures were already winning by a landslide on Election Night – we’ve got better stats on turnout and Vote by Mail percentages. Keep in mind that we’re still not done counting ballots, so these number will continue to change.

Now San Mateo County turnout is now encroaching on 46 percent, which is a far cry from the dismal turnout for the Nov. 6 Consolidated Municipal, School and Special District Election, but is nowhere near a record. Forty six percent is still behind the 49 percent turnout for the 2004 Presidential Primary or the 55 percent turnout in San Mateo County for the Special Statewide Election in 2005.

It’s also distant from the predictions that have been offered up by Elections Manager David Tom for a record turnout more than 60 percent. We’re hoping that voters lived up to his expectations, so that his foot can say far from his mouth.

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Posted in Ballots, Results, Vote By Mail, Vote counting

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Voters at the polls – will the turnout be a record?

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Rebekah Gordon| Leave a comment

To be honest, it’s too early to say whether this will be a jaw-dropping record voter turnout in San Mateo County. After having spent most of the day out at the polls, we can’t say we’ve seen yet the kind of lines documented in San Francisco by the Chronicle.

It may have something to do with the fact that nearly 37 percent of our voters Vote by Mail permanently, and many more requested Vote by Mail ballots for this election only.

Nevertheless, there has been a steady stream of voters coming in and out of polling places everywhere. At many moments, all the eSlate voting booths in a precinct were occupied.

“It’s been steady all day, but nothing overwhelming,” said Fern Lucero, a poll worker at First Presbyterian Church in Burlingame.

So we’ll let you be the judge as the minutes whittle down to the close of the polls. In the meantime, we’ve got some pictures and some thoughts from some poll workers to keep you busy until the results start coming in at 8:05 p.m.

At Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in Daly City:

Student poll worker handing a voter her access code for the eSlate

“So far, we have more people that came than during all of November, and it’s only 9:15.” – Hugo Palacios, poll worker at Woodrow Wilson.

Voters voting on the eSlates at Woodrow Wilson School in Daly City

At Spruce Elementary School in South San Francisco:

Voters voting on the eSlates at Spruce Elementary School in South San Francisco

“I like this. I could do this all the time.” – Amanda Dougherty, student poll worker at Spruce Elementary.

Student poll worker helping a voter sign the roster at Spruce Elementary School

More to come; off to catch the last half-hour at the polls!

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Posted in Election Day/Night, Poll workers, Polling place, Voting, eSlates

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Election Day may have come and gone, but the election is far from over

Posted on November 7, 2007 by Rebekah Gordon| 1 Comment

Workers are still counting Vote by Mail ballots and provisional ballots after Election DayThink we can wash our hands of Election Day? I mean, it is Wednesday evening already.

Sorry to report, but Wednesday, the day after Election Day, means that our work has just begun. This election is not over until we say it’s over, days of the calendar notwithstanding.

We’re still counting a lot of remaining ballots. There were Vote by Mail ballots that arrived at the Elections Office on Monday and Tuesday, Vote by Mail ballots that were dropped off at polling places on Election Day, and provisional ballots cast at the polls. Signatures must be checked and provisional ballots carefully reconciled, all of which takes some time.

So that means that we’re still reporting race results. We posted new results on our Web site at 5 p.m. today and will do so again on Friday, the 9th at 5:00 pm and again on Tuesday, the 13th at 5:00 pm.

Some races will be affected by our continuing count. Case in point, San Bruno’s Measure F, which is currently going down by one vote. Yes, one vote. That one vote was counted today – our latest results release around 1 a.m. this morning based on votes counted yesterday showed the measure in a dead tie. Stay tuned to the bitter end; every last vote matters for this one.

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Posted in Ballots, Election Day/Night, Results, Vote By Mail, Vote counting

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