Monday Last Day To Register To Vote In San Diego County

Speaker 1: 00:00 Today is the deadline to register, to vote and receive a ballot in the mail for the November election, which makes it a good day for our mid day edition voter cram session to begin now that we are only 15 days out until election day questions about how to participate in this pandemic altered election are becoming crucial, but from the volume of ballots already received in San Diego voter enthusiasm is at record levels. Joining me to San Diego County register of voters, Michael VU, and Michael, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me Marine voters who haven't registered yet can register today online. Is that right? Speaker 2: 00:39 That's correct. If an individual is not registered to vote for this upcoming election, they can go to SD vote.com where they can select a registered to vote button that's found on our website. Speaker 1: 00:52 And how do people find out if they are registered Speaker 2: 00:56 Also on our website is a check your voter registration link, where they can put in their house number, their zip code, as well as their birth date of birth and their profiles should come up. If they, their profile doesn't come up, they can certainly also give us a call at (858) 565-5800 to find out whether or not they're registered to vote. And if they're not, uh, they can go to, again, that same website, SD vote.com to register. Speaker 1: 01:20 And if someone misses today's deadline, can they still vote on November 3rd? Speaker 2: 01:25 They can. Uh, the law has been passed by the state legislature, as well as the governor for a couple of years now where a person can conditionally register to vote and vote provisionally, uh, same day by going to hear at the registrar voters office after the October 19th deadline, or, uh, go to their assigned a super polls location starting on October 31st. Uh, and we'll, we'll have 235 super polling locations throughout the entire County for a person to register and vote same day. Um, it's not recommended particularly with a pandemic that is out there is because it takes a time. It takes time to register, and then it takes time to receive that ballot and, and vote and all the additional paperwork that they would need to fill out. We really do want voters to avoid any level of crowding individuals that want to participate in this upcoming election. My highest of recommendations is to register by midnight today. Speaker 1: 02:21 Tell us about how many people have already returned their ballots in San Diego. Speaker 2: 02:27 We are at historic numbers. As you mentioned, Moraine, we have over 430,000 individuals that have returned their mail bout back to our office at this time in 2016, uh, we're over 300 to 400% more than what we saw in that election. So, uh, we have a record number of individuals that have participated, uh, in already in the election. I'm heartened to hear the total number of people that are returning back, uh, their respective ballots, whether it's through the us postal service, uh, or at any one of our mailbox drop off locations. So hard to know that voters are taking keyed and our recommendations to vote safer in this election because of the pandemic and to return their ballots as soon as possible after they've made their selections. I think voters have been really wanting to vote. I think a number of people have been just ready and they've just been waiting for us to send them their respect to balance. And now that they have it within their hands, we know that there are hundreds of thousands of these male bouts that are, have come back thus far and many more to go. Uh, 400,000 only represents a fraction of everything that we sent out and through the governor's executive order, every single mail ballot, a voter actually every active registered voter in our County will receive a mail ballot in this upcoming election. Speaker 1: 03:40 Right now we've heard about a controversy surrounding unofficial ballot drop off boxes, distributed by Republicans in California. Are there any of those boxes here in San Diego? Speaker 2: 03:51 We have not heard of any unofficial mail ballot. Drop-off boxes here in San Diego County. Speaker 1: 03:57 Okay. All right then. So that's, that's one thing we can tick off. Now, you're already in the process of counting those ballots that have been returned, aren't you? Speaker 2: 04:05 We are, the legislature actually passed a new law. It was urgent legislation granting us the ability, not just to signature, verify the envelope against the signature on file, but after it's been verified to open it, to scan the ballot inside our tabulation system, as soon as we receive it, normally we have to wait until tomorrow to be able to extract the ballot outside of the envelope and scan the ballot inside the tabulation system. So we've been actually verifying signatures as well as scanning and balance. As soon as we've received bounce back from voters, Speaker 1: 04:40 Now voting in person is different this year. Can you run us through how and where voting in person is taking place? Speaker 2: 04:47 That's correct. Uh, this is one of the things that we've been trying to express and communicate to the, to the public is the major changes that this election cycle has particularly with, uh, the pandemic itself. Number one, every act of registered voters is going to receive a mail ballot. We know that hundreds of thousands of voters, uh, have returned their mail ballots. Uh, the second component of that is how voters will vote at a polling place. Should they need to vote at a polling place or they want to vote at a point in place? Um, we will have as opposed to 1600 neighborhood polling place precincts, uh, we will have 235 super polls, low locations. The difference here is, is that, uh, although we will have fewer of these respective locations that are going to be much larger and they're going to be open for a four day window as opposed to a one day window. Speaker 2: 05:36 Normally when we conduct an election for election day, it's only open for a 13 hour window on election day here in this upcoming election, those 235 super polls locations will be starting to be opened on October 31st. And they will run all the way through APM on November 3rd. So a four day period. So I would see this election as more of a trade off, but it's really important for the voters to know that. And so we sent out a communications to every single registered voter in August. We continue to message and, and communicated through all the various traditional means whether it's newspaper or radio or social media, uh, now, um, as well as digital ads that people receive, as well as all the various local newspapers, uh, about the changes in this upcoming election and particularly, uh, for in-person voting, knowing that these 235 sites will be outfitted with all the necessary personal protective equipment that voters and the public is used to seeing at any place that they normally go to and venture off to whether that's the grocery store, Costco's your Starbucks. Speaker 2: 06:40 Similar formats will be occurring at the 235 Superbowls locations, including masks and gloves and face shields and plexiglass sneeze guards. That will be there as well as social distancing protocols, as well as cleaning protocols that our poll workers will be trained on. Our poll workers will be trained this week. All 3,500 of our poll workers will start to be trained this week. It's a two day training as opposed to a two hour training, all of this because of the changes that we are making, but also all the necessary information that they need to be well equipped with to ensure that our voters themselves, as well as our staff are voting safely in this upcoming election. Speaker 1: 07:21 And I've been speaking with San Diego County, registrar of voters, Michael VU, Michael, as always thank you so much. Speaker 2: 07:28 Thanks Marie.