Pinole-Hercules Voters Mail It In For 2020 General Election

PINOLE-HERCULES, CA — Contra Costa County saw sky-high numbers for voter registration, but exceptionally low in-person voter turnout in the 2020 general election, including among registered voters in Pinole and Hercules.

Mail-in ballots were particularly popular this year amid the coronavirus pandemic. The night before Election Day, more than 2.7 million Bay Area voters had already cast ballots. Going into Election Day, Contra Costa County had already received 420,000 ballots.

Some 703,000 Contra Costa County residents were registered to vote as of Tuesday night. The Contra Costa County Registrar of Voters Office still has more mail-in ballots to tally, but overall turnout was about 51 percent as of Tuesday night.

According to election night results among Pinole voters, 5,866 of ballots case were vote-by-mail and 665 ballots were cast in-person Tuesday. Of 12,403 registered voters in Pinole, the voter turnout as of Tuesday night was 6,531 (52.66 percent), according to the county’s registrar of voters.

In Hercules, 8,200 vote-by-mail ballots were included in election night result tallies, while 813 ballots were cast in-person. With 16,809 registered voters, the city of Hercules had a voter turnout of 9,013 — 53.62 percent — as of Tuesday night.

Roughly 6 percent of registered Contra Costa County voters opted for in-person polling places for the Nov. 3 presidential election — that’s the county’s lowest in-person turnout rate since 2008, the most recent year for which vote by mail statistics were readily available.

Statewide, more than 11.2 million of California’s more than 21 million registered voters had already voted. Nationwide, the number exceeded 100 million by Monday evening — almost 70 percent of the 136.5 million people who voted in 2016.

Elections officials have 30 days to certify the results of the election. During those 30 days, election officials continue counting vote-by-mail and provisional ballots.

Election results are considered semi-official until certified Dec. 11 by California’s secretary of state.

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Bay City News Service and Patch editor Courtney Teague contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on the Pinole-Hercules Patch