The San Diego County Registrar of Voters expects voter turnout for the March 5 primary election to be between 45% and 50%.
About 400 people voted on Saturday at Vote Centers across the county, said Assistant Registrar of Voters Shawn Brom. While about 10% of voters like to vote in person, most vote by mail, he said.
“We've mailed out over 1.9 million vote by mail ballots, and most people do take advantage of the convenience of voting at home and dropping it off in the mail or any of our 146 ballot dropbox locations,” Brom said.
Registered voters who don’t have access to their mail-in ballot can go to any vote center and cast their ballot. People who are eligible can register to vote conditionally through Election Day. Brom recommended going to a vote center near you even if you don't have your identification.
“We'll look to see if that individual voted in California and once the eligibility is determined the registration will be processed and then that vote will be cast," Brom said. "You're registering conditionally and then voting provisionally.”
Brom said many vote centers are staffed with bilingual poll workers who speak Spanish, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Chinese.
"And then there are select precincts that have the other targeted state and county-covered languages and those are Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Somali, and Persian,” Brom said.
Starting March 2, all 218 county Vote Centers will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
On March 5 all Vote Centers, ballot drop off boxes and the Registrar’s Office will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
