Californians have 3 ways to vote on Election Day. Only 1 requires a visit to a poll
California residents will be able to vote in three different ways this year, according to representatives from seven California counties who gathered on Tuesday to announce their multi-county partnership to increase voting access.
The Northern California Coalition of Election Officials — composed of representatives from El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties — met inside Golden 1 Center for National Voter Registration Day to discuss the various ways Californians can vote this year. The arena, home of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, will be transformed into a socially distanced voting site for the upcoming presidential election.
This year, California voters will be able to send in their votes in three different ways. The first is through mail-in voting. Every registered voter in California should receive a ballot in October, some as early as Oct. 5.
“Voting by mail is one of the safest things you can do in the pandemic,” said Bill O’Neil, the El Dorado registrar of voters. “The ability to handle voting and that volume of ballots coming back is not new to California. We’ve been doing it for years … In El Dorado County, 80% of our voters voted by mail in the last year and a half.”
The second method is through placing ballots in a county drop box, which will be placed in various indoor and outdoor locations throughout each of the seven counties. Voters can drop their ballots off at any of the boxes and the ballot will be forwarded to the county they are registered to vote in.
The third method is through in-person voting, which will operate in each of the seven counties from Oct. 24 to Nov. 3 in socially distanced, regularly disinfected voting centers.
“Together, we can make this a safe election,” said Jesse Salinas, Yolo County registrar of voters. “However you decide to vote, know that we are prepared to ... run a successful and safe election this November.”
Voters will be able to track their ballots from the time they leave the post office to when they arrive at their county registrar’s this year, and ballots will be accepted up to Nov. 20 as long as they are postmarked no later than Nov. 3.
Why the Kings stepped up
At Golden 1 Center, in-person voting will be available from Oct. 24 with 100 booths and a maximum capacity of 118 people, with one person for every 100 square feet. It’s just one of 18 in-person voting locations that will be available from Oct. 24, with all 84 in-person voting locations in Sacramento County opening Oct. 31. California residents can vote at any of these locations. The Kings are providing their home arena as a voting center to Sacramento County for free.
“We always want to use our platform at the NBA and the Kings to make a difference in our community,” said John Rinehart, the team’s president of business operations. “We’ve partnered with over 40 professional teams ... all to bring back a nonpartisan coalition rally to vote. And that coalition’s job is really to provide access for those people who want to register to vote, get out and vote, provide them the tools to make it easy for them. We think voting should be easy, it’s one of our rights, and we want to try to make that as easy as possible for everybody.”
Sacramento County officials are happy for the help from the NBA team.
“I just can’t thank the Sacramento Kings enough for providing us this great location … to help us, free of charge,” said Courtney Bailey-Kanelos, Sacramento County registrar of voters. “In my wildest dreams I never thought we’d have a location like this, so I’m just so grateful to be able to provide this for our voters.”
Assistance for those who don’t speak English
County voting representatives said they’ve redesigned their strategies to reach Asian American, Pacific Islander and non-English speaking voters this year. Yolo County has been working with community leaders to translate election material into languages such as Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Punjabi, Salinas said. They’re also running Spanish-language radio announcements, as well as print announcements in other in-language media.
In Sacramento County, translators will be available on site at voting centers in “more populous areas,” Sacramento County spokesperson Janna Haynes said, and in-language ballots will be mailed out and available to be printed at voting centers.
Bailey-Kanelos added that Sacramento County has also partnered with local grocery stores such as 99 Ranch, a popular Taiwanese supermarket chain, and Arabic markets to distribute translated flyers with important election information. The county has also partnered with school districts to distribute election material translations through school meal programs, as well as assisted living facilities.
In-language announcements explaining the voting process and encouraging voting by mail will also be aired through Crossings TV and printed in publications such as the Chinese-language newspaper World Journal.
“Vote early. The earlier that you vote, the earlier we can count your ballot,” Bailey-Kanelos said. “There’s no reason to wait if you know what you want to vote on.”
This story was originally published September 22, 2020 at 2:04 PM.