Absentee ballots to play big role in special election outcome

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published November 6, 2005 at 9:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 19 years ago.

Voter turn out in tomorrow's Special Election is difficult to predict, but San Diego's Registrar of Voters says absentee voters will make up a significant proportion of the overall numbers. KPBS rep

Voter turn out in tomorrow's Special Election is difficult to predict, but San Diego's Registrar of Voters says absentee voters will make up a significant proportion of the overall numbers. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

It's likely fewer than one in two registered voters in San Diego will actually cast a ballot in this special election. But Michael Haas, the Registrar of Voters says he's not laying any bets.

Haas: "A Special election is different, you don't have any historical perspective to use like you would on a presidential election general you know you're always going to have a turn out in the 70's, in a gubernatorial primary it could be as low as the high 30's, in a state wide special election for eight measures, who knows.

Become a KPBS sponsor

Haas says the Registrar of Voters has already received more than 200 thousand absentee ballots from San Diegans countywide. In last July's election, 38 percent of all voters cast were absentee.

Haas says because there are so many absentee ballots, a third of the vote may already be counted and ready to be announced by the time polls close at 8:00.

Alison St John, KPBS news.

Alison St John

twitter

Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.