Tuesday is Election Day, and (as you probably know already) Election Day is a little different this year in San Mateo County.
To start with, everyone got a Vote by Mail ballot this year – even if you didn’t sign up to vote by mail.
San Mateo, along with 13 other counties around the state, is testing out something new this election, the “All Mailed Ballot/Vote Center Model.”
Now, if you were already voting by mail, there’s nothing new in all this. But if you were a voter who liked walking over to your local precinct to vote – those days are over.
How the new system works
Every registered voter in the county got a Vote By Mail ballot. If you filled that out and mailed it back, you’re done, of course. And if you haven’t mailed yours yet, just make sure it’s got a June 5th postmark and you should be fine.
There are also designated drop-off spots around the county where you can turn in your completed ballot.
And the personal touch isn’t gone altogether under the new system. There are also 30 Vote Centers where you can drop off your ballot – you can get (fill out and turn in) a replacement ballot, in case the dog ate your vote – and you can even fill out a paper ballot and vote the traditional way.
From Daly City to Redwood City, Pacifica to Portola Valley, South San Francisco to East Palo Alto – there are 30 Vote Centers around the county, and you can use any one of them, regardless of where you live.
Your voter pamphlet has all the locations, or you can find them by clicking here.
If you still haven’t registered to vote, there is opportunity to do that as well. Even on Election Day, at any of the Vote Centers, you can sign up – and cast a provisional ballot (The official name for this is “Conditional Voter Registration.”). Assuming everything checks out, you will be permanently registered – and your ballot will be counted.
All the Vote Centers are open from 7 in the morning till the polls close at 8 pm on Election Day, and they are open during traditional business hours between now and then.
Getting the results
Once the polls are closed, to find out how all those other people voted, and what the results are, you can find that on the Elections page (of the Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder & Elections site) by clicking here.
Or as we told you earlier, you can sign up to get the results delivered (to your email).
And of course, you can always go to bed early, and check your favorite news outlet in the morning to read/hear/see all about it.
Candidates, measures, propositions:
June 5 is a Statewide Primary Election where voters will choose which two top-vote-getting candidates in each race will move on to the November General Election.
To view the full list of candidates vying for local and statewide seats, click here.
Nine local school districts either have parcel tax measures or bond measures on the June 5 ballot. Meanwhile, Regional Measure 3, which would increase Bay Area bridge tolls in order to fund a list of transportation projects aimed at relieving traffic in the Bay Area, is also up for a vote June 5. For concise summaries on each measure, click this Ballotpedia.org page here.
There are also five state propositions in this election. To read a good summary of each, click here and go to page 4 of the easy-to-read voter guide by the League of Women Voters and the California Education Fund.
