This year’s voter turnout in Contra Costa County dropped nearly 5 percent since the last midterm primary in 2018, according to numbers released by the county elections department.
In the 2018 primary, Contra Costa residents cast 239,628 votes, which was 39.97 percent of 602,171 registered voters at the time.
In this year’s June 7 primary, county residents cast 247,512 votes, which was 35.05 percent of 706,257 eligible voters.
“Some things to consider when looking at the numbers are California just went through a recall election in September 2021,” said Deputy Clerk-Recorder Tommy Gong. “2018 was an open seat for Governor and 2014 was a year of dismal voter turnout.”
Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder-Registrar Debi Cooper officially certified the results of the June 7 election Monday.
“Our elections team has been preparing for and administering elections nonstop since early 2021,” Cooper said in a statement. “We’ve conducted several special elections that overlapped with preparations for the primary election. I am proud of the incredible effort of our team and thankful for our temporary workers and volunteers who dedicated their time during a continuing pandemic to provide excellent service to our constituents.
“It is an honor to certify this well-run, transparent, and fair election,” Cooper said.
The county elections department completed the official counting of all qualified ballots and audited results “to assure our equipment performed as expected,” the statement said.
The canvass ensured four tasks: verifying every eligible ballot was counted, that voters only voted once, that proper procedures were followed on Election Day, and ensuring that the vote tabulation system properly counted ballots.
It’s beyond pathetic that so few people bothered to do their civic duty and vote.
I can only surmise that those that didn’t vote consider themselves so intellectually inferior that they decided the state would be better off without their low info opinion messing things up (again)….. and they are probably right.
Those movies that Tommy Gong made with his buddy Cheek in the 70s and 80s were hilarious!
election was not Up in Votes, maybe the Next Election (couldn’t think of one for nice dreams). Maybe more voted but they disappeared with Debi Cooper….
Sorry for the last one…
Or the liberals are just shredding even more of the conservative vote. If they just happen to lose our ballots, it certainly looks like fewer people voted.
“our guy/gal lost” = “they cheated”
The narrative is so tired. From both sides.
Aren’t you tired of hearing and saying that BS yet? Turn off Fox News and start thinking for yourself. You may be surprised you have your own thoughts and ideas. How proud you will be when you have an original well-thought out idea of your own. Remember, Melania wants you to “Be Best”!
There’s only one thing worse than not voting: voting for someone or something you know nothing about.
I’m puzzled that the number of registered voters increased by 104,086, or 17.29% in four years from June 2018 to June 2022. I can’t recall any hot button issues in the last four years that would have triggered great interest in being registered to vote but then more or less not voting in June. Maybe it was the governor recall thing?
The county’s population was estimated to be 1,143,188 on 1/1/2018, and 1,156,555 on 1/1/2022. The population increased by 13,367 or 1.17%. I would have expected the number of registered voters to increase by 1.17% or from 602,171 to 609,212.
https://www.cocovote.us/ says there are 701,989 registered voters as of 06/29/22. We have lost 4,268 voters from the June 7, 2022 election to June 29, 2022?
I don’t have time to dig into the data but something that seems useful is to look at each of the recent election results on https://www.cocovote.us/current-and-past-elections/past-election-results/. If you click on the “Interactive Summary” for an election then the number of registered voters and number of ballots is shown in the right sidebar. Knowing when the number of people registered jumped up may provide a clue as to why.
Right after I posted the previous message I remembered that the Biden vs. Trump election was one where many people signed up to vote, and many of those likely will not vote again. That would explain the large increase in the number of registered voters and the small increase in the number that voted in June 2018 vs 2022. It’s no surprise that the percentage of people voting would drop.
Down 5%?
I can’t say as I blame people for not voting.
Voting has become a fruitless exercise.
But,
looking at some of the results from other states is encouraging.
Dominion is dominant in CA.
Spot on @WC Resident! Elections have proven to be rigged and my vote has never counted. Won’t be voting in the future … waste of time, energy and hope.
@ WC resident, I agree completely. See my comment at the top.
My 1 vote against all the big money twisting the language on propositions, creating commercials, mailers, media blitzes saying things like vote YES or kids will starve, feels like I’m swimming upstream. What’s the point. Save our democracy? When some mega-rich person can pay to get a proposition on the ballot then spin the language to confuse most voters. People mainly don’t understand what they are voting on. Example, Contra Costa Measure G passed.
Consumer confidence at all time low. Highest gas and tax rate in country. Highest home and rent prices in country. 2020 was stolen from the people. recall was stolen. Larry Elder won by 75%. But soros and company stole it. Primaries were rigged AGAIN!
So tell me, how is our vote here going to count??? Non liberal votes do not count. There’s a one party system. No ther party to oversee them.
Cheat cheat cheat is all the left knows how to do to win!
Pathetic and no wonder people are making an exodus out of communistfornia!
We use to be called “The Golden State” and now it’s replaced by rainbow colors of a different dimension.
I vote in every election. Every June and November I am baffled by the stupidity of my fellow voters. I usually get depressed for a couple of days after the elections because nothing changes. No matter how bad the government fails the same people get re-elected.
The jockey is too big for the horse. Those that benefit from the corrupt government, and those dependent on the government for their sustenance have more incentive to vote than those that are not. It’s a downward spiral as the rent seeking, and dependent classes get bigger and bigger with each election. Businesses and people fleeing this state in droves exasperate the problem and hasten the process. California will soon be Michigan with nice weather.
Imagine Shaquille O’neal riding a Shetland Pony.
Motor Voter law passed a few years ago. Anybody including Illegal immigrants can get registered to vote when they go get a drivers license. This could be adding thousands of illegal registrations to the county voter rolls. The DMV software doesn’t verify resident status and nobody checks later. There is a legal procedure for candidates to obtain voter lists. It is not a stretch of the imagination to see how this could be used to create illegal mail in ballots. Elections will be suspect until the voter rolls are cleared and the mail in ballot procedures are revoked. I don’t blame anybody for being pessimistic. How the hell did cccounty get stuck with a Marxist DA? and then vote her back in? Are you kidding ?
People that are totally uninformed on the choices probably shouldn’t vote. Of course the uninformed are entitled to vote, but I don’t think it is bad if they don’t vote.
While I acknowledge the right of morons to vote, I feel like they should have to watch a video explaining the issues and where the various candidates stand on them, before you can receive a ballot. People who vote ignorantly don’t benefit anybody.