Voter Apathy? 28% Voter Turnout in Riverside County

About quarter of all registered voters in Riverside County exercised their right to vote in Tuesday's election, with approximately 200,000 people taking part.

Of those who voted, slightly more were registered Republicans versus Democrats, according to data from the Riverside County registrar's office.

As of Tuesday morning, a total of 189,087 ballots had been tallied in the election.  However, another estimated 50,000 remain uncounted for various reasons, according to the registrar's office.

"Approximately 38,000 vote by mail, 7,000 Provisional, and 4,200 damaged ballots that require duplication still must be processed," an announcement on the registrar's website read Wednesday.  "Work on those ballots begins tomorrow."

Breaking Down the Turnout

With the dismal figures listed above, you may be wondering: how does this election compare to those of years past?

According to Assistant Registrar of Voters Rebecca Spencer, turnout in this election is lower than in other presidential primaries, though "there aren't really any elections to compare this one to."  

That's because this is the first year in which the presidential primary was consolidated with the statewide measures and congressional races.

In February 2008, the last presidential primary, 55.6 percent of Riverside County's voters turned out to the polls, according to Spencer.  She attributes that to the fact that the presidential race was still going strong at that time, as compared to this year, in which the candidates for the November presidential race are all but decided.

"People lose interest," she said.

In the June 2008 statewide races-- 23.5 percent of the county's voters participated in the election, Spencer said.  In the 2010 governor primary, 31.03 percent voted.

Election Results

For most races in this election, voters were just narrowing down the field of candidates to two, whom will then advance on in November.  However, since many of our local races, like the race for US Representative, State Assembly and State Senator only had two candidates to begin with-- all of those people will advance on by default.

Prop. 28 and prop. 29, two hot-button issues throughout the state, were decided in this election.

As of Tuesday, though some votes may still roll in, state results indicate that Proposition 28-- limiting the amount of time state legislators can serve in office from 14 years to 12 years-- has passed.

However, it appears that Proposition 29-- a proposal to add a $1-per-pack tax on cigarettes and other equivalent tobacco products-- has not passed.  The margin between the "yes" and "no" votes is just over 1 percent, though, so late-arriving ballot counts may still sway things.

That said, here are the Riverside County results for the main elections on which Banning and Beaumont residents held a stake:

Click here to see the full list of Riverside County election results.

Click here to check out statewide totals for the election.