SLO County seeing a low election turnout. Here’s how many ballots are in so far
The election is one week away, and voter turnout is lower than San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano would like it to be, she said.
As of Monday, the county had received 30,376 ballots for the Nov. 8 election, Cano told The Tribune in an email.
With 182,185 registered voters in SLO County, this means that only 16.6% of voters have returned their ballots so far.
“A week before the election, I feel that this is a lower turnout than what I would expect,” Cano said.
Still, the county currently has a higher voter turnout than it did the week before the June primary, Cano said.
This is to be expected, as general elections tend to have higher voter participation than primaries. For example, SLO County’s voter turnout was 79.2% during the 2020 primary, then jumped to 93.9% for the 2020 general election, according to a county report.
Cano urged voters to return their ballots ahead of Election Day, as ballots submitted early will be counted and included in the election night tally, whereas ballots received by the office in the mail after Election Day are counted later. Counting ballots received by mail after Election Day can take some time depending on volume.
Before Election Day, voters can submit their ballots by mail, drop them off at the SLO County Clerk-Recorder’s Office locations in downtown SLO and Atascadero or at any vote-by-mail drop box in California. Find a list of the county’s certified drop boxes at www.slocounty.ca.gov/Departments/Clerk-Recorder/All-Services/Elections-and-Voting/Where-to-Vote.aspx.
If you want to vote but aren’t registered, there’s still time. You can do that up to Election Day at the Clerk-Recorder’s Office or a polling place on Nov. 8. Get a head start online at covr.sos.ca.gov and then take your voter registration or receipt with you to the Clerk-Recorder’s Office or a voting location.
“Voters just need to know that they shouldn’t delay, vote today,” Cano told The Tribune in mid-October. “There’s no reason to wait. We have all the information for all the candidates and the state propositions and the local measures all available for them.”
This story was originally published October 31, 2022 at 1:45 PM.
