Voter Services - 2020 Election Recap

Voter Services - 2020 Election Recap

Yard signs, Your Vote Matters and Get the Facts Before You Vote
Type: 
News

by Shawn Gilbert, LWVDV Vice-President and School Voter Engagement Chair

First, I want to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone in the League and to our numerous fellow community partners who care about our democracy and our community. Each of you gave so much time and energy to informing, inspiring, engaging, and encouraging our fellow citizens to get out and vote. As a relatively new League member going through my first general election, I was amazed by your efforts and dedication - especially in the midst of a global pandemic!

So how did our County do in this general election? We kicked $%#*%$!!!!

Here are some stats from our Contra Costa County Elections Office (from Dec. 14, Zoom meeting) which might be of interest. We were a part of making all of these successes happen!

  • 703,000 registered voters, with 591,000 actually voting - 84% turnout!
  • 91% of these voters voted by mail; 53% of those ballots were put in one of 37 drop boxes.
  • 188,683 voters used the new CA tool BallotTrax to track their ballot.
  • Ballots were returned earlier than ever, giving election staff time to “cure” those with no signature, or those with unmatched signatures. Curing means calling the voter to remedy the issue so the ballot can be counted.
  • 893 poll workers (volunteers) participated, and 187 were high schoolers!
  • Due to the new Poll Pad device, there was a 79% decrease in the number of provisional ballots that had to be processed after the election. Processing provisional ballots makes tallying take longer. 
According to the LA Times (“More Eligible Californians Voted...",12/11/20): 
  • In Calfornia, 17.8 million voters cast ballots (70.8%) - the most since 1952.
  • Californian voters cast one in every 10 ballots cast nationally.
According to the Stanford Social Innovation Review (“Strengthening the Daily Practice of Democracy”, 12/21/20): 
  • Nationally, nearly 160 million citizens voted (66.7% turnout) - the most since 1908!

While I am celebrating these amazing turnout numbers I shared above, I still come away with the question: Where were the other 29% of CA voters and the 33% of national voters? Why didn’t they vote? How do we reach out and increase the strength of our democracy by having more voters turn out and VOTE?

This article is related to which committees: 
LWV Diablo Valley Voter Services Committee
League to which this content belongs: 
Diablo Valley