Mail-in voting gets underway in Sonoma County

Even though polls do not open for nearly a month, the election is getting underway in Sonoma County this week.

County officials are sending out some 200,500 mail-in ballots for the Nov. 8 election, with the bulk of those sent Tuesday, according to Elizabeth Acosta, the county’s chief deputy registrar of voters.

Voters should start seeing ballots arrive in their mailboxes by this weekend or early next week. Voters who don’t receive their mail-in ballots by Oct. 20 should call the registrar’s office, Acosta said.

With ballots going out, expect them to be followed in close order by a deluge of campaign mailers, robo-calls and TV commercials seeking to influence your vote.

Some voters have already returned their ballots, but most will cast their votes in the final two weeks before Election Day. The size of this year’s ballot, which features 17 statewide measures alone, could also play a role in the timing.

“This is a big ballot,” Acosta said. “That could cause people to want to take a little more time. Or, on the flip side, people may have very well-formed opinions of what they think, so they just vote quickly and they’re done.”

Acosta said her office encouraged mail-in voters to send their ballot back as soon as possible so election officials could process votes and report results quickly.

More than 75 percent of local voters are casting their ballots by mail in Sonoma County, a vast area with a diverse array of races. The county created 119 different versions of the ballot for this election. Most fit on four cards, but the ballot in some Santa Rosa precincts takes up five cards because of the sheer number of local races.

“Depending on where you reside, you could have a ballot that’s different than your relative that lives 10 minutes away,” Acosta said. “So for us, the most important thing is you get the correct ballot, so that you vote on everything you’re entitled to.”

Voter turnout in Sonoma County should be strong in this election, Sonoma State University political scientist David McCuan said. Local voters are far more apt to turn out than the typical voter in California. In the 2012 presidential election, 84.1 percent of Sonoma County registered voters cast ballots, compared to 72.4 percent statewide; in the 2008 presidential election, 93.4 percent of local voters turned out, compared to 79.4 percent statewide.

The historically negative presidential race between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump could also affect turnout, driving voters to fill in ballots specifically to defeat one candidate or the other.

“Does this particular election spur turnout as a function of what we call negative mobilization, or what I call junk food politics - you consume it and you feel bad afterwards?” McCuan said. “In a negative environment, what type of agitated voters show up and what is that level?”

In McCuan’s view, that could have an impact in west Sonoma County, where Noreen Evans and Lynda Hopkins are locked in a hotly contested race for the 5th District seat on the Board of Supervisors. McCuan said the outcome of that race could be affected by turnout among “emerging voters,” a group who are usually younger, more diverse ethnically and more urban than habitual voters.

The race between Evans and Hopkins is arguably the county’s most high-profile contest, but it is far from the only major issue on the crowded ballot. Voters will also consider county measures to extend open space protections, a sales tax increase for county parks, a hotel bed tax on overnight guest stays and a sales tax increase for the Sonoma County Library, among other issues.

Meanwhile, the state’s 17 ballot measures include propositions that would legalize marijuana for recreational use, extend tax increases to fund education and repeal the death penalty.

State Attorney General Kamala Harris and Orange County Rep. Loretta Sanchez are also facing off to replace retiring Democrat Barbara Boxer in the U.S. Senate, and voters will also weigh in on other congressional, state and local races.

You can reach Staff Writer J.D. Morris at 707-521-5337 or jd.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter?@thejdmorris.