Voter registration runs high in Stanislaus ahead of midterm Election Day

Stanislaus County has more registered voters in next week’s highly-contested election than it had in 2014’s midterms; even more than it had in the 2016 presidential election.

So far, 248,466 people have registered to vote for the November 2018 election, according to Lee Lundrigan, the county’s registrar of voters. There were 236,374 registered voters in the June primary election; only 38 percent voted.

Typically, presidential elections fare much better in terms of voter turnout. In the 2016 presidential election, 73 percent of 241,196 registered voters in Stanislaus County cast their ballots. Turnout was 43 percent of 214,188 registered voters in the 2014 midterm election.

Lundrigan declined to discuss whether the increase in the number of registered voters could mean more ballots cast in Tuesday’s election.

“The focus of the Registrar of Voters is in conducting the election and supporting voters,” Lundrigan said Tuesday in an e-mail. “This office avoids making predictions or guesses with regard to the voting process on any level.”

But San Joaquin County’s registrar of voters, Melinda Dubroff, said her office is expecting a voter turnout that is somewhere in between the November 2014 midterm and the November 2016 presidential election.

About 345,000 people have registered to vote in San Joaquin County. That’s about 48,000 more registered voters than in the November 2014 election and 11,000 more than the November 2016 election.

Dubroff said it might be the result of stronger efforts by various groups to register voters, the automatic registration at the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, or more people registering online.

“We are seeing a real difference,” Dubroff said Tuesday in a phone interview. “It’s much easier to register.”

Dubroff admits that just because people registered to vote doesn’t mean they all will cast their ballots. How they cast their ballots is also a consideration.

More people are voting by mail, Dubroff said, and polling places might be somewhat quiet on Election Day.

In a letter sent to all candidates, Lundrigan’s office said some voters might wait to make their choices and drop off their mail-in ballots at a polling place on Election Day. The signatures on these mailed ballots have to be verified before they can be counted; some arrive late on Election Night.

Based on past trends, Stanislaus County election officials anticipate 5,000 to 30,000 ballots will remain to be counted after Election Night, according to the letter from Lundrigan’s office.

In Stanislaus County, 39,014 mailed ballots have been returned to the elections office as of Oct. 29, according to Lundrigan. She said 26,493 mailed ballots had been returned a week before the November 2014 midterm election; 55,227 had been returned a week before the November 2016 presidential election.

Lundrigan said the county, so far, has sent out 181,051 mail-in ballots to voters for next week’s election. The county had 90,252 mailed ballots returned and counted in the 2014 midterm election and 171,608 in the 2016 presidential election, according to results posted on the elections office’s web site.

Oct. 22 was the last day for the easy voter registration process. The county elections office can assist people with conditional voter registration in the 14 days before Election Day. It requires completing an affidavit of registration at the elections office.

The late registrants are given a provisional ballot for voting. After Election Day, the ballot is counted after the elections office validates the person was eligible to register.

Registration forms are available at county elections, city clerk offices and libraries. Another option is registering online at www.stanvote.com or the California voter registration site. For the online process, your personal information is sent to the Department of Motor Vehicles to use your signature on file with DMV.

Stanislaus County By The Numbers

* Ballot returned a week before election

This story was originally published October 30, 2018 at 4:39 PM.