Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Juan Pablo Cervantes says he’s been in touch with the FBI regarding vandalism that occurred overnight at the county voting center set up in the Arcata Community Center.
Cervantes says he received a report at about 5:45 this morning from precinct workers who arrived to find a variety of pro-Palestinian graffiti at the center. Voting center manager Brent Duncan told the Journal the vandalism included someone spray-painting slogans, including “No Election, Insurrection” and “Genocide Is Not a Lesser Evil” on the outside of the building.
Cervantes said Arcata City Manager Merritt Perry was able to quickly get a work crew to the building to paint over the graffiti. Nonetheless, Cervantes said it was reported to local authorities and he’s been contacted by the FBI.
For those in Humboldt County who haven’t yet, there’s still plenty of time to get your votes in and plenty of ways to do it. You can simply fill out the vote-by-mail ballot sent to your registered address and drop it in the mail or one of the drop boxes located around the county, or deliver it to one of the county’s 13 in-person voting centers. If you don’t have that vote-by-mail ballot, simply show up at one of the voting centers to cast a ballot in person. (Find a full list of voting centers and drop box locations here.)
And if you haven’t yet registered, it’s still not too late. California offers same-day registration, so simply head to one of those voting centers to fill out a voter registration application and cast a provisional ballot.
Polls close at 8 p.m. and Cervantes said the Humboldt County Elections Office plans to issue its first election night report a short time later. It will likely comprise results from about 17,000 vote-by-mail ballots the office received and processed prior to Election Day. Subsequent election night reports will include counts of ballots cast in person, though the night will likely end with thousands of ballots — including scores of vote-by-mail ballots turned in at voting centers or left in drop boxes today — to be counted in the coming weeks. Cervantes said he plans to issue weekly count updates until every last ballot has been tabulated.
Check back here for full local election results as they come in.
This article appears in ‘Doing its Part’.
