Some Neighborhoods Hit Harder Than Others As COVID-19 Forces Deep Cuts In Polling Places

Speaker 1: 00:00 Today is our final mid-air edition voter cram session. And we'll bring you thumbnails on several ballot measures and propositions. But first, a look at polling places. Many San Diego County voters have already cast their ballots, but for those who waited to vote in person at their local polling places this year has seen big changes. The number of polling places in San Diego has shrunk dramatically. This is part of the response to COVID-19 to cut down on the risk of exposure. Voters have been encouraged to vote by mail or off locations, but tens of thousands of ballots do remain to be cast KPBS partnered. I new source sources done an analysis of which communities have seen the biggest drop in polling venues and here to tell us what they found is I knew source reporter Jill Castillano Jill. Welcome. Thanks for having me on Allison. There are 235 polling places around the County this year, which may seem like a lot, but in the past there have been 1600. Why did you decide to analyze the location of the remaining polling places? Speaker 2: 00:57 We just wanted to make sure that the locations were placed equitably. So what we're looking for is, is it possible that some voters are gonna have a really easy time because they've kept more of their locations than others. Speaker 1: 01:09 So tell us about what you found, which zip codes lost the most voting locations in which gain or retain the most. Speaker 2: 01:16 Some zip codes were definitely more effective than others. We found that there is one zip code, the nine to one Oh five zip code, which includes city Heights and Oak park in 2018, they had 23 polling locations. Now they just have one and there are more than 30,000 registered voters there. So that's a really big loss. We also noticed that the nine to 100 zero zip code, which includes old town and Bay park used to have 17 locations is now down to just one for their 16,000 registered voters. So that's a big loss as well. And which areas retained the most. There are some zip codes, like the ones covering Rancho Bernardo nine two one two seven. They have about half as many registered voters as city Heights yet they're keeping six polling locations. So that's a big difference. We also noticed in point Loma there's zip code nine 2,106. They don't have relatively speaking that many registered voters, about half, as many as city Heights, but they're still keeping two polling locations. So there's a little bit of a difference there. Speaker 1: 02:18 Um, what about rural areas? Jill places like LA come, uh, how have they done on polling places? Speaker 2: 02:23 Yeah, HUD Kumba is an interesting example in East County. They had their own polling site in the March primary, but for this election, for the fall, voters are going to have to drive 25 miles all the way to pine Valley to vote in person. So because there are so few sites in East County, because it's less populated, you can get really lucky and have a location nearby, or you're going to have to drive a long way. Speaker 1: 02:48 No, the County registrar of voters decides where the polling locations will be. How did Michael VU make those decisions? What did he take into consideration? Speaker 2: 02:56 There are a lot of factors they had to consider for one, they were looking for well-known sites that would stand out as markers to people. So like community centers and public schools, they also had to account for factors like having enough electrical power, having sufficient parking and making sure the size of the space was big enough. Since there are fewer locations this year, they were looking for locations that were larger, like at least 2000 square feet, which is new. He also added that the number of polling locations is well above the state required minimum this year, about 28% greater. So they really put in a lot of effort. He said to make sure they had enough locations to make sure everybody was able to vote in person. Speaker 1: 03:38 You spoke with Evan Crawford, a researcher at the university of San Diego about the results of your survey. What was his response? Speaker 2: 03:44 Yeah, I can tell you, he definitely, um, felt that this was a difficult situation for the registrar's office and knows that this is, this is not easy. You don't normally reduce the number of polling locations so drastically and quickly, but he said, this is the reality of COVID. This is making voting a lot different this year. You said, there's no good responses to this. There's only, what's the least bad way to do this. Speaker 1: 04:08 What about the information on where to go have voters in the most impacted zip codes been getting the information they needed? Speaker 2: 04:14 It depends on who you talk to. Civic advocates have expressed some concern. They're worried that voters, especially in communities of color, aren't aware of these changes and that there hasn't been enough education. If you talk to Michael VU at the registrar's office, he says, actually, they've been putting in a lot of effort to education. They've been sending mailers out to every voter. They offer translations in different languages. He said they hired a contractor to help place ads around the County and prominent public places. He also said, if you go to your old polling location by accident, you'll see a sign there with a map of where your new location is. Speaker 1: 04:49 And of course the polling place address is printed on the back of the sample ballot. Assuming you still have that. Right. Well, finally, since there is so many people who voted already, uh, by mail or dropping off their balanced is in-person voting, going to play a big part in this election. Speaker 2: 05:05 Absolutely. We know that every voter was mailed a ballot and a lot of those ballots have already been returned. And we do know that Michael BU's office, the registrar's office prefers people to vote by mail, but some people still feel really drawn to voting in person. I knew source reporters have been on the scene at polling locations since they've opened on Saturday. And we've seen a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of people who really feel really attached to voting in person, maybe because it's their first time casting a ballot. Maybe they're a little bit concerned about their ballot being, um, counted if they cast it by mail. So we're seeing that enthusiasm, seeing people showing up to the polls already, and we know they'll continue to do so through Tuesday. So this is a big part of the election this year. Speaker 1: 05:46 Great. We've been speaking with Jill Castillano I new source reporter. Thanks Jill. Thanks so much. Speaker 3: 05:58 [inaudible].