With the election just days away, Santa Barbara County elections officials have already received 118,803 ballots; that’s out of a total of 236,000 registered voters countywide. Four years ago this time, county elections officials had received 68,000 mail-in ballots. Of the ballots turned in this year — either by mail or by drop-off box — 63,438 came from registered Democrats, 28,223 from registered Republicans, 21,450 from voters with no party preference, and 5,692 from third-party voters.
While this year’s total so far is nearly twice as large as it was four years ago, the circumstances could not be more different. Four years ago, there was no COVID-19 pandemic, and the same urgency many voters felt for mail-in ballots did not exist. Nor did the county elections office feel compelled to open 30 drop-off boxes throughout the county — Texas by contrast allowed only one drop-off box per county — to accommodate those voters who did not wish to vote in traditional polling places but did not trust the U.S. Postal Service to get their ballots collected in time to be counted. Nor, it’s almost too obvious to mention, was Donald J. Trump running for reelection.
“This is good stuff,” exclaimed County Elections czar Joe Holland. “I don’t have a dog in this hunt politically. I just want people to vote. And they’re voting!”