This November, three out of four Napa County voters will vote by mail.

Having closed 50 polling places over the last two years, Napa County Registrar of Voters John Tuteur is closing eight more for the Nov. 4 election, part of his plan to transition the county to a vote-by-mail system. Affected voters have already been informed that their polling places will be closed.

Now with only 41 polling places open in Napa County, compared to 99 two years ago, Tuteur said he hopes to avoid congestion at polling places during what could be the highest voter turnout in Napa County history.

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The conversion of Napa County voters to vote-by-mail began after the November 2006 election, when polling places became so crowded that an estimated 100 voters gave up in frustration before casting their vote, according to Tuteur.

Since that time, Tuteur has closed all eligible polling places in Napa County — based on factors including how few voters used those polling places during recent elections — and converted affected voters to vote-by-mail.

The move allowed Tuteur to relocate poll workers and equipment to Napa County’s largest, busiest polling places — a strategy Tuteur said will help to avoid a repeat of the November 2006 fiasco.

“That can’t happen in my regime,” Tuteur said.

With 50,000 of Napa County’s more than 67,000 voters now converted to vote-by-mail, Napa County has solidified its place in the top five California counties in terms of the percentage of voters who vote by mail, Tuteur said. Among the others are small counties including Sierra and Alpine, which have only around 1,000 voters.

The 41 polling places that remain open are too busy to be eligible for closure, but Tuteur said that in the event that they do qualify for closure, he will shutter them, as well.

The conversion has been highly unpopular with those who lament the loss of a collective voting experience at the polls.

In a separate complaint, some say that if they use vote-by-mail to cast their ballots early, they cannot change their vote based on information that comes in closer to election day.

“People are not happy,” Tuteur acknowledged.

“I’ve heard from probably 150 of those who were upset,” he said. “I hope I’ve satisfied them with my reasoning, but I’m sure if there are 150, there are at least another five or 10 times that many.”

In a letter to the 2,000-plus voters whose polling places will be closed this November, Tuteur tried to allay unease over the conversion.

“Having converted myself to a vote-by-mail voter, I understand the concern about not having the option to vote at a polling place, but I felt I had to do what was best for all voters,” he said.

Tuteur told voters he has an “obligation to all Napa County voters to provide a secure and convenient means of casting their secret ballot.”

Next week, 50,000 ballots will be mailed out to voters.

9 out of 10 voters

Meanwhile, Tuteur’s office is bracing for what could be the highest voter turnout Napa County has ever seen, with an anticipated 90 percent of voters casting their ballots.

Voters are choosing a new president, of course, but also will elect a congressman, candidates for several municipal and county offices, and will weigh in on 12 state propositions.

In addition to being in the top five California counties in terms of votes by mail, Napa County is also in the top six or seven when it comes to voter turnout, Tuteur said.

The projected turnout has some voters concerned that it will take weeks to get final election results.

Ballots cast by mail take additional steps to verify and count, adding significant time to the counting process. In June, with only a 44 percent turnout rate in Napa County, final election results came in 16 days after the election. Though well within the state deadline for certifying results, the delay drew harsh criticism from many voters. Critics now question the time it will take to certify results in November if indeed the county sees a 90 percent turnout.

“I just kind of feel like the voters of Napa County … deserve better,” Supervisor Bill Dodd told Tuteur during a recent Board of Supervisors meeting.

Tuteur said his office will take additional steps to ensure that November’s votes are counted in as timely a fashion as possible. Poll workers will begin the counting process early, both before election day and after all ballots are received.

About half of the ballots cast by mail will be counted by 8:01 p.m. election night, Tuteur said. Results issued later in the evening will include ballots cast at polling places, as well.

Final results are expected during the week of Nov. 17, he said. His office has 28 days to certify results.

“My job is to be accurate,” Tuteur said. “Right comes before early.”

After the election in June, voters criticized Tuteur’s assertion that preliminary results would not change upon final certification of the vote, concerned that late votes would not count. Tuteur this week said that the odds of election night results changing are “relatively small.” He assures voters that every vote will count.

In the past, Tuteur has said that election results in close races with less than a 25-vote margin are statistically unlikely to change.

After a June election in which the margin between second- and third-place candidates for county supervisor — Harry Martin and Mike Rodrigues in District 2 — narrowed from 49 votes to five after election night, Tuteur said he now considers any difference less than 50 to be up for grabs.