Parties See Slight Registration Boost In California
SACRAMENTO (AP) -- Voter registration efforts in California appear to have paid off, with both parties seeing a boost over the past five months, according to figures released Friday.
Nearly 17.3 million Californians were registered to vote in Tuesday's election, slightly less than the number registered for the 2008 presidential election, the secretary of state's office reported.
Democrats account for 44 percent of voters, compared to 31 percent for Republicans, maintaining an advantage of 13 percentage points.
The number declining to state a party preference is at an all-time high of 3.5 million—or about one in five voters.
Voter dissatisfaction with Sacramento and Washington, as well as record spending by Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, seem to have helped the GOP. Republican registration is up more than 133,000 since May—about twice the number gained by Democrats.
In many cases, registration efforts have been tailored toward the increasing number of people who vote by mail. Counties mailed out more than 7.6 million absentee ballots this month, which is up about 300,000 from two years ago, according to the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials.
A recent campaign swing through California by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele on the RNC's "Fire Pelosi" bus tour was timed to coincide with counties beginning to send out vote-by-mail ballots on Oct. 4.
At a stop in the blue-collar city of Stockton in the Central Valley on Oct. 6, Steele told the crowd that high voter participation was key to the Republicans' success in the left-leaning state.
"We need you to make one more call, knock on one more door, wave one more sign," Steele said. "You can't be shy here; you can't just half-step this effort."
Nearly 2.5 million Californians had already voted as of Friday morning, the county clerks association said.
County election officials are pleased with the vote-by-mail trend, hoping it will save money and cut down on their workload on Election Day.
"We're all trying to do more with less. Certainly, everyone's budgets have been cut and having vote-by-mail helps us distribute our resources better," said Gail Pellerin, Santa Cruz County clerk and head of the statewide association.
In Santa Clara County, officials have been actively promoting vote-by-mail over the past few years, even posting ads on local buses, said Elma Rosas, spokeswoman for the county registrar of voters.
In 2002, only 9,000 voters in the Silicon Valley county were permanent absentee voters; today that number is about 523,000, Rosas said.
With four days left before the election, only one widespread voting problem had been reported.
Elections officials in Fresno County said Friday that the country's 380,000 voters were receiving ballots that incorrectly characterize a highly contentious statewide initiative. The ballots describe Proposition 23 -- a measure to suspend the state's greenhouse gas emissions law—using language that was thrown out by a Sacramento judge earlier this year.
Fresno County Clerk told The Sacramento Bee newspaper that it was too late to reprint the ballots. He said the county planned to issue a press release and post signs with the correct wording at polling places on Tuesday.
California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring issued a statement Friday calling the mistake "a gross error" that "unfairly tilts the playing field." The state GOP supports Proposition 23.
(© 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
