It’s primary election day and it’s now up to you to make your voices heard at the polling booth.
In a wrap-up segment of our series, San Diego Politics 101, political science professor Carl Luna joins Midday Edition on Tuesday to answer questions about the process of voting and vote counting.
The answers below have been edited for clarity and brevity. To hear the full interview listen to the Midday Edition podcast.
>>> We finally made it. It is primary election day. After dozens of interviews with the candidates here on Midday Edition, it is up to you to make your voice heard at the polling booth. That you might have a few questions yet -- left about the voting process itself. We are welcoming back Carl Luna for a wrap-up segment of our series San Diego politics 101. Welcome, Carl. First, listeners may be wondering what happens to their ballot after they cast. >> After your mail in ballot is received at the registrar's office so you dropped it off at the library location or you go to vote the traditional way, all ballots make it to the voter registrar's office . >> here is what Voters Michael Vu had to say about the process . >> once we receive it, there is 500 individuals in our warehouse. 160 of the individuals or scanners. Everyone else is there to support the scanners to scan in every single one of the 1444 precincts. We upload the information to our tabulation system. Because our tabulation system is not connected to the Internet, we sneakernet it over to a computer that is connected to the Internet so we can publish the results to the public. >> Those numbers make it to the final report now with hundreds and thousands of ballots it could take dates that school day sometimes to the weekend before they are ballot counted. >>> Which ballots get counted first ? >> in the mail and ballots they received by today. The ones that were dropped off. Early voting started May 7. Those of the numbers you see at 8 PM five minutes after 8 PM. You see the ballots being cast. Then they have to go to the process of getting them from the precincts to the voter registers office, unpack, count, load them into the system. That could take hours or days to count out the ballots -- all of the ballots. >>> When do we start getting meaningful results ? >>> That depends on how close the election will be. If you expect someone to be able to walk away with it, you see the trend established early on. Some of the closer races, some of our Congressional races for example it may take a couple of days to sort it out. Sometimes you have 16 or 24 candidates running it could take a while to count those. Struck at the 49th and 50th congressional district in San Diego County actually cross county lines into other counties. The full results on those races, you have to wait for the state results, is that right? >> Yes you have to go to the website and look for the district in those Congressional races. I tend to see that the state level takes longer to report than our local county does. Do not be confused by looking at the local county for those two races because you have ORANGE COUNTY, etc., that is tied into the mix. >>> The term jungle primary has come up a lot. What is that? Speed in the jungle primary is what used to be called occasion primary a variation of what they do a Louisiana. Where you have all the different candidates on the same ballot. Anyone regardless of party can vote for anyone regardless of party. The top to can be from the same party go to the finishing line in November for the runoff. In a classic closed primary, you can only vote for a candidate of your own party. In an open primary, you can vote for any one party's primary. And then we had the blanket primary here where you vote for all the different candidates, any candidate party, but the top candidate from each party would go on to the general election. The point of all of this was to give independents more of a chance to vote. The hope was also with our current system that if you have like two candidates from the same party in November, it would force them to move to the middle so they could attract independents or voters from another party. >>> What are the circumstances in which a candidate can win an election outright in today's primary and not advanced to a general election against another opponent? >> It used to be that it was typically if you have 50% +1 you were done you don't have to MoveOn. That is still the case in the county. But the city of San Diego prop K now has the race decided in November for the runoff in November. >>> Which races could be started today? In sheriff, treasurer, Board of Supervisors, district attorney, one of them will win today. What you will end up with is all the local estate offices you go to November 4. >>> What is the difference? >> It is confusing. It makes democracy work better. The high idea is by doing in November you will have a bigger voter turnout. To allow voters if they are going to do a runoff to have the maximum number of voters to legitimize the candidate. Since Democrats tend to turn out more November, this will help Democrats in the city of San Diego. If we adopt this at the county level it will help them with County voting. >>> After today's voting results are in is very low in political activity over the summer? >> Around August you will see calls coming through, some ads being added. The online presence for the online campaign continues without stop. It will heat up more after Labor Day. Struck I have been speaking with political analyst Carl Luna who has been here for our series San Diego politics. Thank you so much, Carl. KPBS we'll bring you the election results and analysis starting at 10 PM tonight on KPBS TV, KPBS radio, and at KPBS.org.
Q: So, first listeners may be wondering what happens to their ballot after they cast it?
A: After your mail-in ballot is received at the voter registrar's office, or you've dropped it off there or one of the library locations you're able to do that at, or you go to vote the traditional way, all the ballots eventually make it to the voter registrar's office. Here's what San Diego County Registrar of Voters Michael Vu had to say about the process: 'Once we receive it there's approximately 500 individuals in our warehouse, 160 of those individuals are scanners and everyone else are there to support those scanners, to be able to scan in every single one of those 1,444 precincts. And then what we do is upload that information to our tabulation system and because our tabulation system is in no way connected to the internet, we then what is called sneaker net it over to a computer that is connected to the internet so we can publish the results to the public.' And those numbers will eventually make it to the final report. Now with hundreds of thousands of ballots, it could take days, sometimes through the weekend before they're all counted. But your ballots will be counted.
Q: What ballots get counted first?
A: The mail-in ballots they've received by today, Election Day, that they can actually count, the ones that have been dropped off, early voting which started May 7. Those are the numbers you see five minutes after 8 p.m. when the polls close. You'll see hundreds of thousands of ballots being cast, but then they have to go through the arduous process of getting them from the precincts to the voter registrar's office, unpack them, count them and then load them into the system. It’s going to take hours or days to count all of the ballots. But you typically know who's winning within the first three, four, five, six hours.
Q: The term 'jungle primary' has come up a lot in this election cycle. Remind us what that is.
A: California's been on kind of a quest to get more people to vote and they've been trying to play with the primary system. The 'jungle primary' is another name for what used to be called the Cajun primary, a variation of what they do in Louisiana, where you have all the different candidates on the same ballot and anybody, regardless of party, can vote for anybody, regardless of party. And the top two, and they can be from the same party, go on to the finishing line in November for the runoff. In a classic closed primary, you only get to vote for a candidate of your own party, in an open primary you can vote in any one party's primary and then we used to have the blanket primary here, where you'd vote for all the different candidates, you could vote for any candidate or party, but then the top candidate from each party would go on to the general election. The point of all of these was to give independents more of a chance to vote because in a closed primary they can’t and the hope was also with our current system that if you have two candidates from the same party in November, it would force them to kind of move toward the middle, so they can attract independents and maybe voters from the other party.
Q: What are the circumstances in which a candidate can win the election outright in today's primary and not have to advance to the general election against an opponent?
A: It used to be that in all the non-partisan local races, county and cities, it was typically if you got 50 percent plus one you're done, you don't have to move on. That's still the case in the county, but city of San Diego Proposition K now has all these races being decided in November.
Q: So, which races actually could be decided today?
A: Sheriff, treasurer, Board of Supervisors, if anybody gets 50 percent plus one. District attorney, since there's only two candidates, one of them is going to win today.
Q: Isn't that confusing to voters?
A: It is confusing. It's an attempt to make democracy work better, which may get in the way actually. The high ideal is by doing it in November, you're going to have the bigger voter turnout. So you really allow voters, if you're going to do a runoff to have the maximum number of voters to legitimize the candidate. The lower ideal in California, at least, is since Democrats tend to turn out more in November, this will help Democrats in the city of San Diego and if we ever adopt this at the county level, would help them with county voting.
