Local voters are heading to the polls today, June 7, where they will select which presidential candidates they want to appear on the ballot in the general election on Nov. 8, as well as weigh in on proposed ballot measures, including Measure A, Measure AA and state Proposition 50.
Palo Alto residents are also voting on the state Assembly race, Santa Clara County Supervisor and more. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
More than 609,000 ballots have been mailed to Santa Clara County residents who requested to vote by mail and 201,228 ballots have been returned (33 percent) as of Monday, June 6, according to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters’ Office.
Mail voters account for approximately 72 percent of the 765,731 voters in this election, according to the registrar.
Mail ballots can still be returned by U.S. mail or dropped off at a neighborhood drop-off site or a polling place today. Mail voters who prefer to cast their ballots in person can vote at the Registrar’s Office, located at 1555 Berger Drive, Building 2, San Jose.
Mail ballots that are returned in person must be received by 8 p.m. Ballots returned by mail must be postmarked today and received by Friday, June 10.
The drop-off sites in Palo Alto, open during normal business hours, are the City Clerk’s Office, Palo Alto City Hall, 250 Hamilton Ave. and Mitchell Park Library (inside), 3700 Middlefield Road.
Check back on Palo Alto Online later this evening for election results, or go to the Registrar’s site at sccvote.org.
Related content
• Editorial: Vicki Veenker for Assembly
• Editorial: Our election endorsements
• Videos of candidate interviews conducted by Bill Johnson, the publisher of the Weekly and its sister papers, the Almanac and the Mountain View Voice:
• To read candidate profiles on Barry Chang, John Inks, Jay Cabrera and Marc Berman, click here.
• To read candidate profiles on Mike Kasperzak, Peter Ohtaki, Seelam Reddy and Vicki Veenker, click here.
• For an interactive online presentation showing the candidates’ stances on top state issues, go to arcg.is/1RCk2fL.
By Palo Alto Weekly staff
By Palo Alto Weekly staff
By Palo Alto Weekly staff
What? I thought we can show up at our polling place and drop off mail-in ballot or being ballot and vote there. Did this change? We have to drive to San Jose to vote or drop-off at Mitchell Park? How does this make sense when so few people vote already? Why would they make it more difficult?
You know what I really hate? The lack of voter information for local races, positions that often have significant impact on people’s lives. Judge elections, for example, it can be very difficult to find information on judges. In the past, I have taken to spending days calling their past lawirms and assessing their legal background. Lawyers who do too much plaintiff work for big businesses are usually less appealling to me, but I wouldn’t vote against someone just because of that. However, I remember speaking to one lawyer who did that kind o work, but wasn’t willing to be direct with me and admit it. I even told him, I’m not going to vote for or against you because of the type of work, but I want to know more. The fact that he couldn’t be DIRECT and honest about having almost exclusively represented moneyed interests like insurers made me vote against him (luckily he did not win). You couldn’t tell any of that from his voter materials, he definitely was trying to portray himself as something else.
On this ballot, there are votes for the “county committee” – I was unable to get credible voter information, or any at all, on several of the candidates. I could only choose among the few I could get information for. Every election, there seems to be at least one or two races, usually local or county level, where it’s impossible to get good information.