At the Seventh Day Adventist Church polling place, Gonzalez said
his No. 1 concern is the number of ballots available.
HOLLISTER
Although head elections official Joe Paul Gonzalez has been busy today helping run the election in San Benito County, he said that overall, it “has been pretty smooth.”
At the Seventh Day Adventist Church polling place, Gonzalez said his No. 1 concern is the number of ballots available.
“One of the areas of concern is: Do we have enough ballots for this election?”
With his projection of 70 percent to 80 percent of eligible voters casting their ballots today, running out of ballots is a real concern for him.
So far, as of late this afternoon, it hasn’t been too much of an issue. But at the First Presbyterian Church polling place, more ballots might need to come from the courthouse.
“They have about 80 more slots for eligible voters who can come to the polls and vote, but we only have about 24 ballots left,” said Gonzalez, the elected clerk, recorder and auditor of the county. “We have more ballots available at the courthouse, so we can send them some more ballots before they run out.”
Due to election code, however, each county must have a contingency plan in place to have extra ballots available in case of such an emergency.
The only other issue he brought up was that a truck parked within in the 100-foot area with a Proposition 8 sign.
Prop. 8 is the statewide question asking voters whether to ban same-sex marriages.
“We had a situation where there was a vehicle – either yes or no on prop 8, but we had to have them move the vehicle because it was within the 100 feet limit,” said Gonzalez.
