It's no presidential election, but SLO County had a 'nice turnout,' clerk says

Assessing the California primary election on Tuesday afternoon, San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder Tommy Gong said there was "nice turnout" locally, with more vote-by-mail ballots received so far than were counted in the last similar election.

In SLO County, voters on Tuesday were deciding the races for Superior Court judges, the sheriff, county assessor and district attorney, while District 2 and District 4 also voted on their representatives to the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors.

"It's certainly not like a presidential election," Gong said. "We're seeing some pretty nice turnout at the office with people turning in their ballots. No lines or anything like that."

He added there were no reported problems at county polling places as of early afternoon.

Gong said his office had counted just under 48,000 vote-by-mail ballots as of 4 p.m. — an increase from the total 46,000 mail-in ballots counted in the 2014 gubernatorial election. He said they expect that number to go up as the evening goes on and his office counts more of the received ballots.

"We're just kinda waiting for 8 p.m. to come around," he said.

The county sent 120,000 vote-by-mail ballots out this year, according to previous Tribune reports.

There are about 166,500 people registered to vote in the county: Of those, 60,600 are registered as Republican, 58,000 are registered as Democrat, and 37,500 declined to state a party preference.

This story was originally published June 5, 2018 at 5:46 PM with the headline "It's no presidential election, but SLO County had a 'nice turnout,' clerk says."