Blue Lake voters planning to cast a ballot in the November election may need revise their voting plans.
“For the first time in the almost 50 years that we’ve been voting in Blue Lake, there will be no place to vote in-person in our city,” Lin and David Glen wrote in an email to the Journal. “Today, we talked to our friends about this — all highly engaged, politically aware, committed Blue Lake voters — and not one of them knew that Blue Lake would have no place to vote in-person on Nov. 5. We’re concerned that on Nov. 5, some voters will go to Prasch Hall — last year’s polling place — expecting to vote, but it will be closed. It may be too late for them to make other plans.”
Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Juan Paul Cervantes tells the Journal it is true Blue Lake will not have a vote center location this election, saying the Humboldt County Elections Office has been trying to push that message out on social media. He notes the information is also listed on the sample ballots sent out earlier this month.
Cervantes says elections — both locally and throughout the state — look a lot different than they did just a decade ago, thanks largely to the Voter’s Choice Act, a landmark bill passed in 2016. The law required all California voters received a vote-by-mail ballot and that county elections office expand in-person early voting opportunities, while also providing secure ballot drop-off locations throughout their counties.
“There are now more ways and more days to vote,” Cervantes says, noting that voters can now drop — or cast — their ballots at any in-person voting center in the county.
And many of those aren’t just open on Election Day. Beginning Oct. 7 and running through Election Day, voters can drop off or cast their ballot at the Humboldt County Elections Office (2426 Sixth St. in Eureka). In-person vote centers at the Arcata Community Center and Fortuna Veterans Memorial Building, meanwhile, will be open for voting beginning Oct. 26 and through Election Day, while centers at Cal Poly Humboldt, College of the Redwoods, the Humboldt County Office of Education, the Jefferson Community Center, Monument Middle School in Rio Dell and McKinleyville Middle School will all be open Nov. 2 through Nov. 5. Additional centers will be open Election Day only at the Hoopa Neighborhood Facility, the Humboldt County Fairgrounds’ Belotti Hall, Redwood Playhouse, the Center at McKinleyville and the Eureka Veterans Memorial Hall. Drop boxes, meanwhile, have been set up at Ray’s Food Place in Willow Creek, Murphy’s Market in Trinidad, Ace Hardware in McKinleyville, Murphy’s Market in Glendale, both Murphy’s Markets in Arcata, as well as Ray’s Food Place in Valley West, at the Elections Office and Murphy’s Market in Eureka, at Ray’s Food Place in Fortuna and Shop Smart in Redway. (Find the full list here.)
Making these new options available means moving away from the polling place model that used to see more than 100 in-person voting centers open on Election Day, Cervantes says, adding that which in-person voting centers remain open depends largely on numbers. In the primary election, Cervantes says Blue Lake’s Prasch Hall center collected 95 ballots — 63 of them from Blue Lake voters — while the center at the Fortuna Veterans Memorial Building collected 481 and the one at McKinleyville Middle School collected 509.
“It’s just a very low number and I only have the funding for so many vote centers,” Cervantes says of Blue Lake’s ballot haul, noting that one of his priorities with the new system is making sure those who do show up to cast a ballot in person don’t have to wait in line very long to do so.
Keeping Blue Lake’s center open during the primary cost the Elections office $8,250 for staffing alone — six election workers and an election manager — and Cervantes says opening another center in McKinleyville was ultimately deemed a better way to serve voters. Similarly, he notes that the voting center previously opened at Fortuna’s Gene Lucas Community Center also closed this year due to low turnout, so the office could open a location in Rio Dell.
“We want to make voting easier for as many people as possible,” he says.
So far in this election, one thing is clear: More voters than ever are availing themselves of early voting options. When he left the Elections Office on Saturday, Cervantes says about 8,000 voters had already cast ballots — nearly 10 percent of the county’s 82,000 registered voters, according to the latest California Secretary of State’s Office report.
“We have an incredibly high initial turnout,” he says. “We were ready for a high voter turnout but we weren’t expecting this high.”
The deadline to register online to vote in the Nov. 5 election is today but fret not if you’re running behind. California offers same-day registration allowing residents to submit a conditional voter registration application up to and on Election Day, allowing them to cast a provisional ballot at any county vote center that will be counted if their registration is approved.
And if you’re planning to drop your ballot in the mail, remember it must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by the local elections office no later than Nov. 12.
For more information on your voting options in the upcoming election, visit the Elections Office site here.
As the Glens remind in their email to the Journal, it’s not unusual for local races to be decided by just a handful of votes, so make sure and vote on or before Nov. 5.
Editor’s note: This story was updated from a previous version to correct an error regarding the history of the voting center at the Gene Lucas Community Center in Fortuna. The Journal regrets the error.
This article appears in Ballot Measure Soup – A look at all those local revenue proposals coming before voters.
