Voters in San Diego County's fourth supervisorial district have until 8 p.m. on Tuesday to cast a ballot in the special election to replace former supervisor Nathan Fletcher.
San Diego County Registrar of Voters Cynthia Paes said that, as of Friday, her office had received ballots from about 16% of the district's roughly 400,000 registered voters. The district includes Spring Valley, Lemon Grove, La Mesa and a swath of central San Diego stretching from Paradise Hills to Bay Ho.
Turnout is typically much lower in special elections than during gubernatorial or presidential elections. Turnout in the 2022 gubernatorial election was 54%, but turnout in the special primary election to fill Assembly District 80 earlier that year was only 16%.
"We try to encourage voters," Paes said. "These are your local officials. These are the folks that will impact your lives in your home the most. So these elections are really important to turn out."
Four candidates are on the ballot: San Diego City Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe, veterans advocate Janessa Goldbeck, conservative activist Amy Reichert and Marine veteran Paul McQuigg.
The race has seen a flood of campaign spending — most of it coming from outside groups that are not allowed to coordinate with the candidates themselves. Montgomery Steppe and Goldbeck are Democrats while Reichert and McQuigg are Republicans, but no candidate's party affiliation appears on the ballot because local offices are officially nonpartisan in California.
The Board of Supervisors currently has two Democrats and two Republicans, meaning the outcome of the District 4 race will determine which party controls the county government. Registered Democrats far outnumber Republicans in the district, though low-turnout special elections are often unpredictable.
Every voter in the district was sent a mail ballot, which must be signed and dated in order to be counted. Voters can send the ballots via USPS, as long as it gets postmarked by Aug. 15, or they can drop them off at one of 29 secure ballot drop boxes.
If the mail ballot got lost or a voter simply prefers to vote in person, the county will have 14 voting centers open on Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Seven of those voting centers will also be open on Monday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Paes expects to certify the results of the election well before the 30-day deadline in state law. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, the top two candidates will compete in a runoff on Nov. 7. Mail ballots would arrive in voters' mailboxes for the runoff in early October.
