Following a recount in the race for District 4 Supervisor in the primary election, the San Luis Obispo County Elections Office has been working around-the-clock and is now gearing up for the general election in November.
The 2022 midterm general election on November 8th will feature important votes statewide including Governor and Secretary of State. Locally, ballots will be filled with U.S. Representative and State Senator races, as well as several measures that are specific to each district. General election voter turnout is typically higher than the primary, but SLO County Clerk-Recorder, Elaina Cano, says voters could get discouraged to vote in the general election if they don’t vote in the primary because they think their options are limited with just two selections to choose from.
“For the primary, that's usually a little bit disheartening to me to think you're missing that opportunity,” said Cano. “You've got all these wonderful choices, and then all of a sudden when voters get their ballot in the mail for the general election, they think, ‘Well, I don't like either one of these two. Where's everybody else? How come nobody's running?’ Well, they all ran in the primary.”
Cano says her office will likely be working over Labor Day Weekend to put the finishing touches on the voter information guide that’s sent to every voter in the county.
“We already have our temporary election workers here doing all the proofing of the candidate statements because those candidate statements are going inside our voter information guide, and our printer needs those next week,” said Cano. “They also need our ballot images next week, so we are already preparing.”
Cano says voters can expect vote-by-mail ballots to be sent out the week of October 10th. The office also needs between 600-800 poll workers on Election Day.
