San Benito County Clerk John Hodges said he’s glad to be
wrong.
San Benito County Clerk John Hodges said he’s glad to be wrong.
County voters may not have gone to the polls in droves on election day, but the turnout was much better than anyone – including Hodges – expected: Nearly half of the county’s registered voters turned out to vote.
“A turnout of 47.2 percent is a pretty decent showing,” Hodges said.
Several weeks ago, Hodges and other election officials said the overall voter interest appeared to be so low that they predicted the turnout would probably be less than 40 percent, and might hit a record low of less than 36 percent.
“During the primary in March we had a turnout of about 36.1 percent,” Hodges said. “We had never been that low before.”
Traditionally, the number of people who go to the polls drops during a non-presidential election year.
Hodges said he was pleasantly surprised to see such a high turnout.
“I think what brought people out was the number of candidates on the ballot,” Hodges said.
He said with nearly 40 candidates on the ballot there was enough to interest voters throughout the county.
Of the county’s 26,896 registered voters, 12,696 either went to the polls or voted absentee, according to county records.
Of the more than 6,000 absentee ballots mailed out to local voters, 3,802 were received in time and were counted, making up 14.1 percent of the total votes.
The elections office could not count 110 absentee ballots because they were either filled out incorrectly or mailed too late. Hodges said that’s not unusual because every year a number of people who vote absentee wait until it’s too late to mail in their ballots.
By law, absentee ballots have to be received by the elections office by the day of the election or they will not be counted.
“Putting that ballot in the mail on the last day just doesn’t do it,” Hodges said. “They have to be in-hand by 8 o’clock on election night.”
Absentee voters can drop off their ballots at the elections office or take them to any of the polling places around the county.
Hodges said most voters still prefer to go to a polling site to cast their votes. A total of 8,894 voters – 33.1 percent of all registered voters – went to their respective polling sites on election day, according to county records.
Hodges said the election results will not be final for at least another week while officials complete the canvassing of the election and sign off on the results.
