Alameda County ballot returns hit 11.8% as in-person voting opens statewide
About 115,600 of 983,645 mailed ballots are back; Democrats make up a larger share of early returns than of registration.
By the Bay Area Brief staff · Edited by Seamus McKenna · · 2 min read
Downtown Oakland skyline over Lake Merritt at dusk. Photo: Darin Marshall / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped, resized and color-graded). Archive photo of the area; not a photo of the events in this story.
Alameda County voters have returned 115,645 of 983,645 mail ballots for the Nov. 3 general election, 11.8%, according to the county Registrar of Voters' data page.
Why it matters: Early returns show who is voting first. In-person voting began across California on Saturday, and KCRA reported "high voter energy" at early vote centers.
Who has voted so far
Democrats: 64.5% of returned ballots, versus 57.6% of ballots issued.
No party preference: 17.6% of returns, versus 25.6% of ballots issued.
Republicans: 13.9% of returns, versus 11.9% of ballots issued.
Youth voters: 43 of 1,203 ballots returned (3.6%).
Registration
983,463 registered voters, with 90.6% on permanent vote by mail.
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Cynthia Cornejo, who started as a temp in the registrar's office in 1996, is running her first major election as Alameda County registrar. She plans to count ballots through election night and add more result updates.
For many East Bay seniors, the Meals on Wheels driver brings both dinner and the only face-to-face conversation of the day. Demand is growing as food aid is cut.
Twenty Alameda County vote centers opened Oct. 24, and 80 more open Saturday, Oct. 31. Drop boxes are open 24 hours a day until 8 p.m. on Election Day, and mailed ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 3.
A small office fire at the Berkeley Public Safety Building at 2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Way set off sprinklers and forced police and dispatchers to evacuate Wednesday evening. Alameda County handled Berkeley’s 911 calls until the city center came back online around 10 p.m.
