Worst ever turnout for state special election

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

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BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

Prop 1a coverage

11:15 a.m.LOS ANGELES — California voters showed little interest in Tuesday’s special election, with most not bothering to cast ballots.

According to the secretary of state’s office, counties are reporting a preliminary turnout of 23 percent, or roughly 4 million of California’s 17.1 million registered voters.

In Napa County, there were 19,751 ballots counted election night, for a total of 27.9 percent of all registered Napa County voters. Of that total, there were 12,436 votes cast at polling places and 7,315 mailed in.

The number is expected to rise in the days ahead as counties count provisional, damaged and vote-by-mail ballots that were turned in on Election Day.

It’s unclear how many outstanding ballots remain to be counted. County election officials are expected to report their number of uncounted ballots by Friday.

The lowest turnout on record for a California special election was 36 percent in 1993.

7 comment(s)

Paddy wrote on May 20, 2009 1:25 PM:

" Very telling of the pathetic nature of a very liberal state... "

B-side wrote on May 20, 2009 2:50 PM:

" I only vote when the poles are against the outcome I want. I didn't vote in this election and the outcome was exactly as I wanted. "

Hear Ye wrote on May 20, 2009 7:07 PM:

" Amazing how far some people on here will reach to make a partisan attack. "

JMB wrote on May 20, 2009 8:20 PM:

" I have a privilege to vote. I do. That I learned as a young'un. This mattered because of the cost. The government is already eating away our income, they can't have anymore. And I was pleasantly shocked at the results. "

jjnnapa wrote on May 20, 2009 8:31 PM:

" Paddy wrote on May 20, 2009 1:25 PM:

" Very telling of the pathetic nature of a very liberal state...

Maybe it was a "very" liberal state. But if it were still "very" liberal then these props would have passed. And don't forget, the terminator (our gov) is a republican.

There are parts of this state that are very liberal such as Berkley, SF, Hombult, etc... but looking at the state as a whole, I would not agree with your statement. In fact, I would argue that the majority of Napa is conservative. "

lupmart wrote on May 20, 2009 10:22 PM:

" Hey B-side, that is how your side loses an election!

I think the problem with the turnout isn't because people don't care ... its because no solution was available. It was a completely negative situation. The only choices available were to raise taxes which would leave the state in a big financial crisis OR say no to more taxes which would leave the state in a slightly bigger financial crisis.

Given a real shot at real reform, maybe more people would have come out. "

Paddy wrote on May 21, 2009 7:17 AM:

" Sorry jjnnapa, the majority of Napa is Democrat and quite liberal. Look no further than the recent results of the Prop 8 vote compared to the rest of CA.

I agree that if more of this liberal vote turned out for the election perhaps, as happened with Prop. 8, these latest propositions would have passed. Because of the apathy of many of these young liberals they didn't show up for this one and the results reflect that. "

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