Last week 20 Democratic candidates took part in the second round of debates in the race for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination. But did you know that how you cast your ballot in California’s Presidential Primary Election could be very different from years past?
That’s because the voting process in Orange County is changing. The days of reporting to your assigned neighborhood polling station on Election Day are over.
The March 3, 2020 primary will be the first election where all of Orange County’s roughly 1.6 million registered voters will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. Voters will have the option of mailing in the ballot, dropping it off at a secure ballot drop box or voting in person at any of the proposed 188 Vote Centers in the county.
Election Day will no longer be a one-day event. Voters can deliver ballots to one of the 110 drop boxes as soon as they receive their mail-in ballots, roughly 30 days prior to Election Day. Vote Centers will be open for in-person voting for ten days prior to Election Day, as well as Election Day, of course, which means you’ll have more flexibility for when you can vote.
What exactly is a Vote Center? “Your one-stop location for all things voting,” according to the website for the Orange County Registrar of Voters, the office that oversees elections. Not only will you be able to cast a ballot at a Vote Center, you’ll also be able to address voter registration issues, change your party affiliation, get language assistance and more, all with the help of trained staff who will use electronic check-in which the Registrar promises will make the voting experience more efficient.
The Registrar’s Office is still determining where the Vote Centers and ballot drop boxes will be located but is considering a number of factors in the decision-making process including their proximity to public transportation, population centers, neighborhoods with eligible voters who are not registered to vote as well as traffic patterns and access to free parking. The Registrar has held more than two dozen public meetings this summer on this topic and is still seeking feedback on its website, www.ocvote.com/votecenter.
In 2016, California passed the Voters Choice Act which allowed counties to enact Vote Center elections. In 2019, the Orange County Board of Supervisors authorized the county to do just that.
Changing habits are part of the reason for the move to a Vote Center election. “While polling places have been a mainstay of voting for many years, the use of them has dropped dramatically in the past 20 years,” according to the Registrar’s Office. More voters are choosing to vote by mail. For instance, in the 2018 General Election, 44% of ballots cast in Orange County were vote-by-mail ballots.
Now all registered voters will be vote-by-mail voters. It’s too early to tell if the changes will impact voter turnout but the switch does appear to give voters more options.
