SAN FRANCISCO (NewsNation Now) — San Francisco’s outdoor voting center is open for business in front of the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.
People preferring to vote in person before their neighborhood polling place opens on Election Day can do that. Others, who have filled out their mail-in ballot, can drop it off at one of two drop boxes.
“We got them in the mail day before yesterday we filled them out, and we wanted to make sure they were in there so that’s why we dropped them off. Since I turned 18 I have never missed a single election in my life,” said Kent Bloom and John Bonafede Bloom.
Ballots went out in the mail on Friday, and already 12,000 San Franciscans have completed and returned those ballots.
“Those numbers are higher than expected. We’re probably 2 to 3 times higher in terms of returns,” said San Francisco Deptartment of Elections Director John Arntz.
Whether voters put their completed ballot in a city designated dropbox, a U.S. mailbox, or turn it into their neighborhood polling place on Election Day, voters can track that ballot on the San Francisco elections website, NewsNation affiliate KRON-TV reported.
Officials said this election will be historic for the city.
“We have increased 20,000 registration voters since the March election, now in San Francisco we have 517,000 registered voters, the highest number in the cities history,” said Arntz.
Come Election Day, they are expecting a record turnout as well, above the 81% that turned out in 2008 when Barack Obama was first elected president.
Elections officials said while voters can drop off your ballot at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, their best bet is still blue U.S. post boxes.
