Quick Take
As Election Day tensions run high nationwide, Santa Cruz County Clerk Trisha Webber foresees a smooth election locally, but says questions from voters this year have reflected the broader sense of skepticism around the electoral process.
Less than 24 hours from Election Day, the seeds of electoral distrust sowed over the past four years by polemical rhetoric have reached peak bloom in many parts of the country. Election offices have installed bulletproof glass, poll workers are wearing panic buttons and law enforcement is standing at the ready.
Yet, as Santa Cruz County Clerk Tricia Webber processed early ballots from her office Friday afternoon, against the steady background beat of an electronic counter tallying each vote, the local elections czar said her team has avoided much of the drama seen in other parts of the United States.
ELECTION DAY NOV. 5
“I really don’t see Election Night for us being different than how it usually is,” said Webber, who took over as county clerk in 2021, making this year’s presidential election Santa Cruz County’s first with her at the helm. “We’re not seeing the people come in to observe, nor are we getting the same kind of phone calls other areas of the country are experiencing. For us, it really feels like a regular election.”
Poll watchers and count observers are part of every election, but Webber, half-jokingly concerned about “jinxing it,” said she doesn’t expect much heightened scrutiny of her team while counting ballots on Election Night.
However, she admitted the election has felt different for her and her staff in other ways. Webber is hesitant to call what she has seen “mistrust,” instead saying that her office has encountered a lot of people who say they “don’t fully understand the process” of counting ballots and “don’t know what to believe.” The types of questions Webber’s office is fielding this cycle have reflected a multiplying sense of skepticism. She said she’s heard a lot of questions implying the incorrect belief that vote-by-mail ballots are counted only when the election is close, as well as concern over the time it takes to notify a voter their ballot has been counted.
The questions this year, she said, “are just different.”
“People come up to drop off their ballot and ask why we weren’t checking voter ID,” Webber said. “I had one couple who came in and said they wanted to scan their own ballot,” a request Webber even offered to entertain if the couple came back with their ballots later in the day when Webber’s team was scheduled to begin tabulating votes.
Webber said her staff are always willing to walk voters through the ballot counting process, regardless of the nation’s temperature; however, this year, she said the clerk’s role as educator has grown.
“My office talks about the process every week: We compare and contrast notes from phone calls and emails we receive, and as we hear things happening in the news, we talk about it so we are ready to answer questions,” Webber said. “My office has always believed in educating voters. The more you understand the process, the more comfortable you will feel with the process.”
Webber said she is expecting Santa Cruz County to register one of the highest voter turnouts in its history. The high-water mark is the 2008 presidential election, when 86.7% of registered voters cast a ballot; Webber said she foresees turnout to reach the mid-80s. As of Friday afternoon, nearly 61,000 ballots had already been cast, a 35.6% turnout of the county’s 170,535 registered voters.
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