Energized by the excitement of this year’s presidential
election, Adrienne Lee cast her vote early for Senator John McCain.
A registered Republican and mother of two, she was impressed by the
level of expertise McCain would bring to the presidency.
Energized by the excitement of this year’s presidential election, Adrienne Lee cast her vote early for Senator John McCain. A registered Republican and mother of two, she was impressed by the level of expertise McCain would bring to the presidency.
“The presidential election was obviously a biggie,” she said, standing outside Nob Hill Foods Monday afternoon.
When the results of the 2008 presidential election are called, for the first time in history, Americans will either have an African-American president, Senator Barack Obama, or a female vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin.
Two out of five Santa Clara County voters cast their votes before the polls even opened this morning, according to the county registrar of voters. Of the county’s 788,821 registered voters, 71 percent are permanent vote-by-mail or absentee voters and about 41 percent have already submitted their ballots, said Elma Rosas, spokeswoman for the registrar of voters. That leaves about 463,000 county voters who will be standing in line to turn in their ballots or vote before 8 p.m.
Lee voted early to avoid the election day lines, she said. She was also driven by local measures like the school and library bonds, she said.
“The library I was for,” she said. “The high school I voted against. Let’s wait on it. It’s not that I’m voting against it, but the economy is so bad to have to put more money out on something we can’t afford.”
With a son in the first grade and a pre-school aged daughter, Lee said she believed the construction of a new high school to be a community need, just not when the nation is entrenched in economic turmoil.
The dismal state of the economy was one of the reasons Tosh Phillips, a volunteer with the Santa Clara County Democratic Party, decided to vote for Obama – that, along with the “hope, change and positiveness of this man,” she said, patting the Obama button pinned to the front of her shirt.
“We’ve been negative and partisan for so long,” she said. “This country needs someone like him.”
Although thousands of voters have already made their decision, the South County Republicans, Santa Clara County Democratic Party and the candidates kept pounding the campaign trail down to the wire. Many spent the last weekend before the election knocking on doors and handing out literature.
“Traditionally, we have not had the highest rate of organization,” said Mike Davenport, South County chairman for the Republican Party. “The main focus of this campaign is organization.”
Last weekend, county Republicans banded together at busy intersections to promote their candidates, he said.
Meanwhile, members of the Democratic Party stood outside their office in Morgan Hill on Halloween night, handing out candy to trick-or-treaters and literature to their parents.
“We want to get everyone to the polls that we possibly can,” said Swanee Edwards with the Santa Clara County Democratic Party. “Going out into the neighborhoods is a good way to find out who may need a ride to the polls. We’re trying to be helpful, not ram something down people’s throats.”
Edwards and Davenport were both struck with the number of young people who volunteered their time to this election cycle and the number of voters expected to participate in this year’s election.
“This is shaping up to be probably the largest voter turnout this country has ever seen,” Edwards said.
The registrar expects about 85 percent of the electorate to cast their vote by Election Day, Rosas said, the highest voter turnout in Santa Clara County in three decades. The registrar will not accept ballots after the polls close at 8 p.m. this evening, so absentee voters who have not yet mailed in their ballots must deliver them to a polling place or drop-off site, Rosas said. The registrar will not accept postmarked ballots.
“We really need to get those back,” she said of the more than 200,000 vote-by-mail ballots that had not been returned as of Monday afternoon.
Voters who choose to vote at the polls are advised to go prepared with their selections already in mind, Rosas said. To expedite the process of voting for 12 state propositions, seven county and city measures, and pick candidates for the Gilroy Unified School Board, Congressional District 15, State Assembly District 28, State Senate District 13, and a Superior Court judge, Rosas urged Gilroy voters to make sure they go to the correct polling place, which is printed on the back of voters’ sample ballots. The registrar has added extra precincts this year, bringing the number to 1,142, to accommodate the record number of voters expected at the polls.
