With just two weeks left until the Nov. 4 special election, counties across the Bay Area are seeing strong interest from voters.
In San Mateo County, six locations opened for a total of eight voting centers where voters can show up and vote in person already.
Colma’s City Clerk has been bracing for a turnout like this.
“For me, it’s exciting to see people come out and vote, because we don’t always get a lot of turnout, so seeing all this interest is great,” said Michelle Estabillo with the Colma City Clerk.
She says the national political climate over redistricting efforts in red states seems to be driving the voters’ excitement on both sides of the issue.
That’s something Governor Gavin Newsom talked about just two days ago in a prop-50 event in San Jose.
“It just reinforces that this is a great turnout for prop-50 and look, prop-50 is our reaction to this authoritarianism that’s going on. These attacks. These assaults. This guy is wrecking this country,” Newsom said.
Marin County Republicans, who support “No On 50”, say the proposition is more about political posturing than protecting democracy.
“We think it’s an overreach by the governor, that his ambitions for the presidency are kind of driving him to get more notoriety, as he starts his campaign to be the Anti-Trump movement, because they already have the state legislature and a super majority,” said John Turnacliff with Marin County Republicans.
Republican, Democrats and Independents: everyone seems to have an opinion on 50.
“It’s nice to have a clean conscious. I mean if someone else is robbing banks, I should go out and rob banks?” said Jack McGuiness, a South San Francisco independent voter.
And Estabillo said she thinks most people have already made up their minds about how they’re going to vote.
“No matter how many ads or mailers are out there, they’re going to vote the way they’re going to vote,” said Estabillo.
San Mateo will open seven more locations Nov. 1. They’ll remain open until 5 p.m. nightly, right up until Nov. 4 and stay open until 8 p.m. on election night.
Source: NBC Bay Area
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