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Nearly 4 million people in the Bay Area’s nine counties voted in this year’s general election, breaking voter turnout records in some. Eight of those counties reported finalizing results by Wednesday.
San Mateo County was the last county in the Bay Area to certify results, expected to come Thursday, according to the county website. As of Nov. 30, San Mateo County reported nearly 86% turnout, with 380,077 ballots cast. The only thing left to count was a “small number” of provisional ballots.
“The election went remarkably well, considering it was the largest in San Mateo County history and conducted in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Jim Irizarry, the county assistant registrar of voters.
Unofficially, 3,782,883 Bay Area residents voted in this year’s general election, with the largest number coming in Santa Clara County. Officials there reported receiving 863,964 votes, which accounted for nearly 85% of registered voters, according to the registrar’s office. Palo Alto saw 88.7% of its 43,147 registered voters cast a ballot in the general election.
Alameda County’s 521 precincts cast 785,215 ballots, 75.4% of which were mail-in. Total turnout exceeded 81%.
Contra Costa County officials counted 591,143 votes, which was more than 76% turnout of registered voters.
San Francisco officials reported receiving 449,866 votes from the city’s 609 precincts, representing more than 86% of registered voters.
Sonoma County finished with 272,244 votes cast, which accounts for more than 90% of registered voters, according to the county website.
In Solano County, workers counted 209,002 votes out of a possible 258.850, which was a bit more than 80% of the registered voters. “We had a pretty smooth canvass period with no issues,” said registrar John H. Gardner.
Marin County saw slightly more than 90% turnout, with 158,103 of 175,220 voters casting ballots.
Napa County election officials counted 73,269 votes, accounting for more than 86% of registered voters, according to the county website.
“Napa County reached a record turnout of 86.62% during a health emergency,” said registrar John Tuteur. “I am pleased that 93.5% of our eligible citizens are now registered to vote.”
California’s 58 counties have 30 days from Election Day to report final results to the state, which is Dec. 4. The state must certify California’s elections by Dec. 11. The Electoral College officially votes for president Dec. 14.
>Santa Clara County officials reported receiving 863,964 votes,
>which accounted for nearly 85% of registered voters.
Considering the population of Santa Clara is estimated to be 1,927,852, that really only represents around 45% of the population. The reality is that turnout is rather quite lame.
@JS – According to the Census Bureau, in 2019 21.6% of the county was under age 18, so we’d need to subtract 400,000 kids from the population total since they’re not eligible to vote. Census doesn’t track citizenship, but shows 38.7% as “foreign-born.” Taking a guess that half of those have become naturalized citizens and half are foreign citizens (and therefore ineligible to vote) would subtract another 300,000 adults (after adjusting for the same 21.6% for kids). (I have no idea how to adjust for convicted felons or other adult citizens who may not be eligible to vote.)
That (very rough) calculation suggests that only 1.2 million residents are eligible to vote. If 85% of registered voters voted in the election, that means there are 1 million registered voters.
So, ~85% of people eligible to vote are registered to vote and ~85% of registered voters voted in the last election. I think that’s pretty inspiring turnout!