County Voter Turnout Low at 22.3%

Even though mail-in ballots were still being counted today at elections offices around the Bay Area, some officials were already predicting that final tallies would show a below-average voter turnout this year.

San Mateo County elections manager David Tom said that as of Tuesday night, turnout in that county was 22.3 percent.

Once the mail-in and provisional ballots are counted, he expects turnout to be around 25 or 26 percent.

"I was hoping for more," Tom said. "I was hoping for 29 percent."

He said, however, that the turnout is about average for a local election, and that far more people turn out for gubernatorial and presidential elections -- San Mateo County's turnout for the 2008 presidential election was 79 percent.

"Unfortunately, I don't think voters see the value of local elections," Tom said.

He said that doesn't make sense, because voters can be more personally affected by local races and measures such as proposed school bonds or parcel taxes.

"If you have kids, these impact you directly," he said.

Alameda County Registrar of Voters Dave MacDonald said that Tuesday's voter turnout in his county stands at just 27 percent, compared to around 61 percent in the 2010 election, which included a hotly contended race for governor between Meg Whitman and eventual winner Jerry Brown.

"I think this is one of those off-year elections," MacDonald said.

Around 40,000 mail-in ballots that were dropped off at polling places still needed to be counted as of this afternoon, which will likely bring up the voter turnout to 30 percent, MacDonald said.

In San Francisco, where 16 candidates were running for mayor this year, preliminary voter turnout was around 33 percent as of this afternoon, Director of Elections John Arntz said.

The average turnout for elections in San Francisco is around 50 percent, which is what it was in 2010, he said.

This year's average will increase once mail-in and provisional ballots are added to the tally, he said, but will probably remain well below 52 percent, which is what voter turnout was in San Francisco's last mayoral election in 2007.

Arntz declined to give an opinion as to why this year's turnout at the polls was lower than other years, but said the city's ranked-choice voting system was probably not to blame.

"We actually don't get a lot of complaints like that from voters," Arntz said. "Complaints are more 'where's my polling place,' 'where's my ballot,' or if there's electioneering going on."

--Bay City News