11 million Californians have already voted, political data expert says

California voters are set to break turnout records this year.

As of Monday, more than half of all mail ballots have been returned, according to Political Data Inc., which tracks mail ballots. The 11 million ballots returned have already surpassed the total number of mail ballots returned in 2016 — about 8.4 million.

California had one of its highest turnouts in the 2016 election, with more than 14.6 million votes cast, according to historical turnout records from the Secretary of State’s Office. But Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., said he thinks the electorate is going to pass that number easily this year.

“We probably would expect to get to 16.5 or 17 million votes,” Mitchell said. “That leaves a ton of votes to be cast on Election Day, either by people mailing them on election day, going to drop boxes, or going in person and voting at the polls.”

It may take some time to know exactly how many voters cast a ballot this year. According to the Secretary of State’s office, two days after the election, counties must provide an estimate of their remaining unprocessed ballots report. The Secretary of State’s office will post this “unprocessed ballots report” online and provide daily updates as new estimates are provided from the county elections offices.

Sam Mahood, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s office, said “it will take days/weeks after the election to get a true sense of turnout.”

But if registration is any indication of turnout, California can expect to see exceptionally high numbers.

A record 22 million Californians registered to vote this year, representing nearly 88 percent of all eligible voters. The state automatically registers people to vote when they visit the DMV through the state’s Motor Voter program, and the number reflects the highest percentage of citizens registered to vote heading into a General Election in the past 80 years.

Also new this year is the high volume of mail ballots. Californians have long cast a high percentage of their ballots by mail, but amid the pandemic the state ordered that every registered voter be sent a mail ballot.

There’s been a targeted effort this year to motivate young Latino voters in California. Mitchell said while those voters are performing at higher numbers than usual, they have yet to live up to the full strength of their numbers.

“Latinos right now are 19% of the total votes cast, and they’re 26% of the electorate,” he said. “So they’re under-performing their share of the electorate, but they’re over performing the 14% or so that they are normally at.”

A record turnout could also deliver a record victory margin for Democrat Joe Biden, who could win by as many as 36 points in the Golden State, researchers at the University of California Berkeley predicted last week. Such a landslide would be the largest victory margin in a California presidential election since 1920.

Researchers said Biden supporters this year are more motivated by defeating President Donald Trump than by electing their candidate.

The strong turnout seen in California is an indication that voters are passionate about the election this year, said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California.

“This is a set of circumstances we’ve never seen before,” Romero said. “We’ve never mailed every registered voter a vote by mail (ballot), we’ve never been in a time of a pandemic. And we haven’t had so much rhetoric, and so much concern around vote-by-mail.”

“There are a lot of voters that have felt very passionate and concerned,” she said. “There are a lot of voters that have been waiting to cast that vote.”

This story was originally published November 2, 2020 at 11:30 AM.