Monday Is California's Voter Registration Deadline

I'm Maureen Cavanagh. It's Monday October 22nd. Our top story on Midday edition. The midterm elections are all over the news and today's the day you can make sure you're eligible to participate. California's voter registration deadline is today. Applications can be submitted online by midnight by mail postmarked with today's date or in person. Joining me with more information on the voter registration deadline is San Diego County Registrar of Voters Michael Vu. Michael welcome to the program. Thanks for having me Maureen. Now voter registration has been climbing in San Diego County over the past months. Where does it stand right now. Well we're sitting at one point seventy three million registered voters in the county it's all time historic high and it keeps on climbing and certainly today being the registration deadlines I anticipate anywhere from 30000 to 50000 registration records coming in. Of course a number of those individuals are just going to be reregistering to vote. But a lot of those are going to be new as well. How do people register to vote online. It's very simple. Individuals can go to SD vote com and there's going to be a logo there that a voter can click on and essentially go through five different screens putting in their respective information and become registered to vote for the upcoming election. And do you advise people to choose the online registration if they've waited until today. I would say so that's probably the most convenient for individuals to hop online and go to Estey Vodacom and register to vote. And if they have a driver's license certainly we'll be able to pull their signature from the DMV to receive it. That way they don't have to print it out and sign it. They get it back to us if you don't have a signature on file with the DMV. Then Cheryl you'll be requested to fill it out. Print it out and then sign it and get it back to us. But again as you mentioned it needs to be postmarked by today. Where can you go to register in person. We have a number of individuals coming onto our campus right now at fifty six hundred overline to register to vote as well as their voting as well. But if you want to pick up a registration form a hardcopy paper registration form you can pick one up here or you can pick one up at any DMV library. City clerk's office as well. Now what do you need to present when you go in to register to vote. Do you need any sort of documents with you. You don't need any documents with you. The best thing that you would want to bring or at least know is the last four digits of your social security number or your driver's license number because that's going to be requested on the registration form or if you do it online. Those one of those two pieces of information is going to be asked of you if you don't. That's perfectly fine. When those individuals are known as first time by mail register voters and you may be requested to show some type of identification at the polls though if you do end up going to the polling location because you didn't provide us the last four digits of your social security number or your driver's license number. Now in general voter turnout is lower during the midterms than during a general election. What are your expectations for voter turnout this November. I anticipate in this election it's going to rival the 2010 gubernatorial general election in that election. It was an open gubernatorial general and like it is this go around and it could be higher in this election just because of everything that's going on with throughout the entire country as well as so many different contests that are on the ballot this go around in our county. And certainly for San Diego County voters we've always experience a high turnout for a general election. I anticipate that to occur this go around as well. I wonder Michael if you could give us more of an overview of the types of decisions voters will be making in this election. This is a gubernatorial election of course the top races for California governor. What are some of the other races that voters will be deciding on. Well there are some other statewide races like the secretary of state attorney generals contests are going to be on there all the congressional races throughout the entire county are going to be on the ballot as well as the state assembly. There you've got a couple of states senatorial races that are going to be on the ballot from a county level you've got the Board of Supervisors District 4 and Five is on the ballot and then you've got some countywide measures for countywide measures overall local measures. Yeah 41 total local measures throughout the entire county. And then in statewide propositions you have 11. So there are plenty of items to vote on on the ballot. And then if you're in the city of San Diego you've got things like SDM West that's on the ballot as well as the Soccer City Stadium. A question that's going to be on the ballot which are competing measures that are out there quite a few contests when it comes down to questions that are on the ballot related to cannabis as well as two broad measures that are out there. We're seeing quite a few bond measure questions that are being posed. Most of those from school districts. So OK if you missed today's registration deadline My understanding is you can still vote November 6th. But it's a little more complicated isn't that right. That's correct. A couple of years ago the state legislature passed what is known as conditional voter registration. So what that means is that if you missed today's registration deadline you can still participate in the election. It's more complicated as well as inconvenient that you have to come to our office register and vote the same day here or office. And that'll happen starting tomorrow and run through November 6 at 8pm. Early voting is already underway. What kind of volume have you been seeing. Well we've had a couple of thousand of individuals that have come to our office and early voted started 29 days prior to us prior to the election which is October 8th. And it continues now in terms of the mail ballot returns. We have 90 a thousand a little over 90000 mail ballots have been returned. Of the one point two million that we've sent out there so we know that there are over a million mail ballots still in circulation in the hands of voters that are out there. If I gave it from a political party perspective of the 90000 that have been returned approximately thirty six point five percent are Democrats and 39 percent are Republicans. The minor political parties the 4 percent and then the no party preference voters 20 percent and just a quick question about mail in ballots. The envelope asks for postage but voters don't actually have to put any postage on their ballots is that right. Postage is required 71 per cent is what the required number is. However if a voter happens to forget that they didn't put sufficient postage on there or didn't post any postage whatsoever. We do have arrangements with the U.S. Postal Service to ensure that it does not get sent back to the voter but get sent to our office. I see so you have to pick up the tab. If people forget to put stamps on their mail in ballots. That's correct. This is the last election when it comes down to postage. The legislature passed a law this year which will take effect January 1st 2019 where postage will be paid. But this election this upcoming November 6th election is the last election where postage is required. And again if there's insufficient postage associated with it or no postage will make sure that it gets back to our office. Ok then I've been speaking with San Diego County Register of Voters Michael vuh. Michael thank you very much. Thank you. Maureen.