Election 2020: Knowing The Deadlines To Register And To Get A Mail Ballot

Speaker 1: 00:00 The California primary is getting closer. Today is the deadline to register to vote and be eligible for a regular ballot. Voters who wait to register after today will receive a provisional ballot. What does that mean and how prepared are we for what state election officials predict will be a record turnout on primary day March 3rd joining me with the answers is San Diego County register of voters, Michael WGU Michael, welcome back. What does today's deadline mean for people who want to vote in the March 3rd primary? Speaker 2: 00:32 What it means is it's a significant deadline and the reason why is because if you need to change your political party or if you've changed your residence address recently, you need to reregister the vote so when the clock strikes 12 by midnight tonight, you know, we'll go into a different phase of the election. And so it's really important for our San Diego voters as well as citizens to take action today before it hits a midnight. Speaker 1: 00:58 If someone isn't sure if they're registered, how do they find out? Speaker 2: 01:01 You can simply go to SD vote.com and to find out whether or not you are registered with our office or you can contact our office as well at eight five, eight, five, six, five 5,800 uh, either of those, those two ways are the most convenient ways to find out whether or not you're registered or whether or not you need to register to vote. Speaker 1: 01:21 Yeah. How can people register online? Speaker 2: 01:23 That's correct. These days it's 24 seven. You can register@sdvote.com and we will absolutely take your information and it's kind of the surefire way of registering to vote where you can't really make a mistake because there are the information that is required, prompts you when it's not filled out and so whereas a paper form you could still make a mistake on that paper registration form or not fill everything out here on SD vote.com and the registration system that we have. It prompts you of everything that is required for you to register to vote and it's simple. There's only five screens that you have to go through and then hit the submit button and you're registered to vote. We will send you a voter notification card confirming that. Um, and if there are any questions about it, you can go again@sdboat.com to see whether or not you're registered. Speaker 1: 02:11 Now, if a voter should miss today's deadline, what are their options? Speaker 2: 02:15 An individual that misses today, uh, can still participate in our office, will be open starting tomorrow all the way through election day at 8:00 PM when the polls closed to conditionally registered and provisionally vote voters. And so what will occur is, is the individual needs to come onsite to our office. They will register and then after registering we will issue them the ballot type, uh, that they're eligible to vote on and they will vote in return to the voting booth and fill out the information, cast their ballot and submit it into the ballot box. Uh, we will also have satellite voting locations that we will be introducing for the very first time. They will be open three days in advance of election day. Speaker 1: 02:57 There's another deadline coming up. And that one is to request a vote by mail ballot, right? Speaker 2: 03:02 That's correct. Is always seven days in advance of election day. Uh, is the deadline to request a mail ballot. And here's the thing there, it has to be some level of a sense of urgency, even though that's the legally required timeframe for an individual to request a mail ballot by the time we receive it. But by the time we process it, by the time we create the ballot and package it and get it into the us postal service, and then it's in their hands, you know, it could take seven to 10 business days before they get the ballot. And so time is really waiting for individuals to participate in this election, particularly for a mail ballot, voters or individuals that want to crossover, particularly the nonpartisan voters who want to cross over to one of the three political parties that are opening up their presidential candidates. So again, uh, voters if it, if, if, if it hasn't felt real, uh, now is the time where it feels really real for us, um, on getting your ballot that you want. Speaker 1: 03:59 Now, the California secretary of state, Alex Padilla is predicting a record turnout. And is that part of the urgency here? Do you agree or are there going to be a lot of people voting in this primary Speaker 2: 04:10 anticipate that there are going to be a big turnout? Uh, presidential elections are always a big turnout, uh, particularly for, uh, whenever there's a presidential candidate that's going to be on the ballot. Um, in this upcoming presidential primary election, what we've seen so far is we had 100,000 mail bouts that have been returned at thus far. That may seem like a lot, but we sent out 1.3 million mail ballots. So that only represents 7% of all mail ballots that we have issued thus far. So we know that there's over a million mail ballots that have still yet to be voted and return back to our office. So I would urge those voters that are mail ballot voters that received it to really act now and get that mailed belt back to us. Um, but we will see at the end of the day, the last time we had a presidential primary election, it was a 50.9% turnout in the last County wide statewide election that we had, which was the gubernatorial general election. Speaker 2: 05:07 We saw 66.4% turnout, which was the highest turnout in a gubernatorial general election that we saw in a 32 year period. And this is the next statewide election that we're seeing. So, um, we will see at the end of the day how much of a turnout there will be. But I anticipate that a lot of, of, of, of the turnout rests on this super Tuesday that California is participating and voters will come out. So that way they know who the nominees will be by the time the presidential nominees will be. Uh, by the time we have head towards the November election, Speaker 1: 05:42 I have been speaking with San Diego County registrar of voters. Michael WGU, you're very busy. I really appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you so much.