Due to higher-than-expected turnout in today’s election, the
Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters is implementing backup
voting procedures to help mitigate potential ballot shortages, and
the large turnout will likely mean a delay in counting ballots,
Registrar of Voters spokeswoman Elma Rosas said.
Due to higher-than-expected turnout in today’s election, the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters is implementing backup voting procedures to help mitigate potential ballot shortages, and the large turnout will likely mean a delay in counting ballots, Registrar of Voters spokeswoman Elma Rosas said.
The ballot shortage is largely attributed to an unanticipated surge in the number of decline-to-state (nonpartisan) voters who are choosing to vote a Democratic Party ballot, Rosas said.
Precincts that experience ballot shortages will be provided plain paper copies of the affected ballot types to ensure the continuation of voting. Voters can also choose to cast their ballot on electronic voting machines or use the ballot pages from their sample ballot and voter information pamphlet. The Registrar’s Office routinely has backup voting procedures in place every election to protect the rights of all eligible voters who go to the polls to cast a ballot, Rosas said.
The high voter turnout has already caused some precincts to run out of certain ballot types in the northern areas of Santa Clara County, including Palo Alto and Cupertino. If the high turnout trends continue, the Registrar’s Office expects that more precincts could be affected.
Under California state law, qualified political parties can choose to allow voters who are not affiliated with a party to crossover to a partisan ballot. For today’s election, only the Democratic and American Independent Parties are allowing nonpartisan voters to crossover.
The Registrar’s Office is asking that voters who are registered with a political party, particularly Democratic voters, bring their sample ballot and voter information pamphlets with them to the polls in case backup voting procedures are necessary. The Registrar’s Office is also asking nonpartisan vote-by-mail voters who want to crossover to a partisan ballot to bring their original ballot with them to the polls to avoid having to vote provisionally.
Meanwhile, some voters were a bit confused today. When they turned their vote-by-mail ballot over to find their polling place, it was blank.
Rosas said it’s nothing new, but each election there are more and more vote-by-mail voters.
“If they’re in a precinct with less than 250 voters, we don’t have to provide a polling place,” she said. “So, they become a mail ballot precinct.”
Voter interest is running high, with both the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries hotly contested. That’s causing many of the 5.5 million voters who requested absentee ballots to wait until the last minute to make a decision.
That could lead some counties to delay final results until Wednesday or later. Mail-in ballots that are received election day can be counted only after precinct votes are tallied and then must go through a time-consuming verification process.
With about 50 percent of ballots expected to be mail-in, registrars are warning that 20 percent or more of all ballots may go uncounted tonight.
The shift in California’s presidential primary from June to February this year repositioned the state, the nation’s richest delegate prize, as a key battleground for candidates. Voters responded to the heightened interest, with 15.7 million registering for today’s election.
That’s the most ever for a presidential primary in California and is 700,000 more than registered for the 2004 primary.
The polls are open until 8 p.m. today. Voters who are in line to vote at 8 p.m. will be allowed to remain and cast their ballot.
