More than 30,000 San Diego County voters cast ballots at vote centers on Tuesday as the March primary wrapped up — just a small but durable fraction of the votes cast throughout the election across the county, years after mailed ballots became the default.
Election officials had already tallied more than 386,000 by the end of the night, making for turnout of 20 percent based on those returns alone. But that turnout number could double, and it could be weeks before results are complete and official.
At a vote center in the San Diego LGBT Community Center in Hillcrest, voters filed into the auditorium Tuesday evening to drop off ballots and use the in-person voting machines. One voter, Laura Stratton, said the primary was important to her because she wanted to support Rep. Katie Porter for California’s open U.S. Senate seat.
“We need more women in the Senate and halls of power,” Stratton said, just an hour before polls closed. Porter did not make it onto the November ballot.
Although some voters needed help scrolling down long lists of candidates on the touch-screen ballot-marking devices, Registrar of Voters Cynthia Paes said primary day had run smoothly around the county.
As in years past, in-person turnout was noticeably higher than it had been during early in-person voting, with over 31,000 voters casting ballots at the over 200 vote centers spread across the region Tuesday, Paes said — compared with around 2,000 voters per day over the weekend and about 4,500 on Monday.
“I think it’ll take time for voter behavior to adjust to take advantage of those earlier days, but there’s still those voters that really appreciate that election day experience,” Paes said.
Voting by mail remained the overwhelming choice of San Diego County voters, however — a shift Paes said began back in 2010 and has continued since.
Even before the 2016 Voter’s Choice Act, under which California began mailing every registered voter a ballot, 80 percent of San Diego County voters had already permanently signed up to vote by mail, Paes said.
Her office anticipates voter turnout this primary election to meet or exceed that of the last primary election in 2022, which had a 35 percent voter turnout. Paes anticipates anywhere from 35 to 45 percent this election. The last presidential primary in 2020 saw 49 percent turnout.
Results were continuing to trickle in Tuesday night, with the last update — scheduled to land around 1 a.m. Wednesday — estimating how many outstanding ballots will still need to be processed.
After election night, the next release of unofficial results is scheduled to be posted by 5 p.m. Thursday.
Under California law, the county registrar has 30 days to certify election results. The results must be certified by April 4, and the registrar expects to use the full certification period to make sure the results are accurate.
For updated election result totals, visit sdvote.com.
