Roughly two-thirds of San Joaquin County voters will be voting by mail during the midterm elections next month. 

And with almost 50,000 more voters in play when compared to the midterm elections four years ago, voter turnout could he historic – creating the possibility that more people will vote in the Gubernatorial election than did in the Presidential election just two years ago. 

According to the San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters office, approximately 334,354 people are registered to vote next month – a sharp increase from the 297,425 that were registered to vote in 2014. 

And with more than 10,000 new voters registered in the two years since the country took to the polls to elect a new President, the norm of typically low voter turnout for midterm elections may not materialize on November 6. 

According to San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters Management Analyst Brian Gegarian, the numbers could change slightly when the total number of registered voters eligible to go to the polls next month is released later today – the result of the final tabulation of last-minute online and paper registrations that came in ahead of the midnight deadline on Monday night. 

Of the 344,354 voters that are currently registered to vote next month, 233,210 of them are listed as permanent vote-by-mail designations – a noticeable increase from the 218,194 absentee voters that were listed as of May of this year.

With so many voters registered to vote by mail, some races may be too close to call on election night as some ballots postmarked by election day will be received after the polls have officially closed. That scenario has led to several too-close-to-call scenarios in local races in recent years, particularly in Lathrop where the final numbers on election night changed by the time the race was actually certified, leading to changes in the expected council makeup. 

Of the estimated 745,424 residents of San Joaquin County in 2017, there were 442,435 people marked eligible to vote in the last election – corresponding to more than 75 percent of all eligible voters being registered to vote. Both of those numbers have risen with new development in the last 12 months, and the new numbers will be posted to the San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters’ website by the end of the day today.

For more information about the November ballot, or for additional numbers about registered voters in past elections, visit the registrar’s website at www.sjcrov.org.

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.