Early in-person voting begins in Sonoma County

Residents across Sonoma County got a jump on exercising their right to vote on Saturday, the first day of in-person voting under new rules mandated by the state amid the potential challenges to turnout posed by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

A total of 30 polling places opened at 9 a.m. as part of the new allowance signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom this summer, down from the roughly 150 sites the county usually hosts. Counties were permitted to slim down the number of locations so long as they are open during the three days ahead of Election Day.

Husband and wife Oscar and Lorri Duckworth of Sebastopol took time out of their Saturday afternoon to drop by the Gold Ridge Fire Protection District’s Station 1 to cast their ballots in person as a matter of tradition. They brought their mail-in ballots with them to use as “cheat sheets” to remind them of their choices, and spent about five minutes making their selections and dropping paper ballots in the designated location.

“This is the best part,” Lorri Duckworth, 58, said as she affixed an “I voted” sticker to her shirt. “I want to cover myself in voting stickers.”

The Duckworths, who own Duckworth Family Farms, said they specifically settled on Halloween afternoon to vote, believing it would be less busy and a quick way to submit their ballots.

“We felt like it might give us a little window where there wouldn’t be a crowd and we pulled in, and look at this,” Lorri Duckworth said, pointing to an empty parking lot. “After watching the news and hearing all the horror stories, this is such a delight. It’s extraordinary.”

But the new approach to in-person voting also comes with the hurdle of getting the word out. At the west county firehouse, there were more volunteer poll workers than there were voters. Just 17 people had arrived to vote at the west county fire station by 3 p.m., plus another 15 or so who dropped of their mail-in ballots, which had to be in with the county’s Registrar of Voters Office by Thursday to be guaranteed to be counted in the first wave of results on Election Day.

Poll workers also had to go through a COVID-19 training for the November election, and also go through a health check before starting their shifts. Sanitizer and cleaning products prominently feature throughout polling areas, and protocols were put in place for regularly cleaning voting booths, said Deva Proto, Sonoma County’s Registrar of Voters.

Face masks are provided to anyone who shows up without one, though voters can’t be made to wear one if they don’t wish, a volunteer poll worker said. For those people unwilling to don one, a ballot can be completed “curbside,” she said.

About 1,700 people voted in-person across the county on Saturday, Proto said. The most popular locations included the community centers in Petaluma and Rohnert Park, the Windsor Civic Center and Christ Church Methodist Church in Santa Rosa.

It was difficult to gauge how many more voters may show up on Sunday and Monday, as well as on Election Day — or if it turnout will surpass the county’s highest-ever voter turnout of 93% in the 2008 presidential election, Proto said.

“It’s hard to predict. We really don’t have anything to compare it to, because we’ve never had this type of early voting,” Proto said. “The 93% is a really high total, and I’m not sure if we can get there, but I’m hoping we can get close.”

The number of in-person voters in the county this November will fall below those who mailed their ballots back or dropped them off early at a ballot box. More than 193,000 of Sonoma County’s 300,586 registered voters — or about 64% — had already had their mail-in ballots processed by Saturday night, according to Proto.

Jarad Regan, 41, of Petaluma was one of those people who dropped by the city’s community center to vote in person. He said he was thankful it took just 15 minutes.

“I wanted to get it out of the way, and was also concerned on Tuesday there would be more people,” he said. “I wasn’t afraid of the vote-by-mail type. I just procrastinated too long.”

Paz Gentry, who recently moved within Sebastopol, said she would have preferred to complete her mail-in ballot, but it didn’t arrive at her new address. She said she felt the urge to show up for the first day of in-person voting, where she filled out a provisional ballot at the Gold Ridge fire station, to support Joe Biden for president, as well as a stress reliever for herself.

“I liked what he had to say. He was real,” Gentry said of her choice at the national level. “It’s been weighing heavy on me. I wanted it over.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin Fixler at 707-521-5336 or kevin.fixler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @kfixler.