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San Diego County sees historic surge in voting for November election

Election 2020 California Voter Safety
Posted at 7:39 PM, Oct 18, 2020
and last updated 2020-10-19 02:10:57-04

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — More than 400,000 people in San Diego County have already cast their ballot for the November election.

"We are unprecedented, unchartered, in so many different ways in historic numbers of mail-in ballots that are coming back to our office," said Michael Vu with the San Diego Registrar of Voters.

Saturday, Vu said the registrar had received 432,000 ballots have been cast. Vu said most of those ballots have been mail-in.

When it comes to mail-in ballots, Vu added that the county had seen a 400% increase compared to mail-in ballots cast during the same time span in 2016.

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"Certainly the question for a presidential election under the cloud of a pandemic is was it resonating with voters and really, what this is a sign of is that voters have been ready to cast their ballots, they were waiting for us to get their ballot to them," Vu said.

Vu added that the influx of mail-in ballots also demonstrated that the U.S. Postal Service is capable of handling the increase in processing ballots.

Starting Oct. 31, 235 "super polling" locations will open across San Diego County for residents who want to vote in person and allow for social distancing.

"This is where the uncharted waters come in when it comes to our office," says Vu. "That way it avoids any long lines that we’re expecting and anticipating which has been historically the case for a presidential general election."

The deadline to register to vote is Oct. 19, after which voters will have to cast a conditional ballot, which takes longer to be counted.