There’s a new way for Humboldt County residents to vote this year with their mail-in ballots.
“One of our new things that we’ve got going on an additional way that people can vote is our express lanes. So folks that have voted their vote by mail ballot are going to be able to bring them to a vote center if they’d like to vote that way, and they can vote in person, have a separate lane for them, where they’ll just sign into the roster and put their ballot into the ballot box. They can still send that ballot by mail if they’d like, but this is just an additional option for them,” said Juan Cervantes of the Humboldt County Office of Elections .
Unlike traditional vote by mail, when you use the express lane, your ballot is scanned at that time and becomes part of the election night returns.
Regular vote by mail isn’t necessarily counted on election day, since workers have 30 days to certify the election.
Humboldt County tested the express lanes during the March primary and had great results.
“We had a lot of feedback. You know, we’ve been sending vote by mail ballots to every voter in the county since 2020. And we had a lot of folks that would bring in their vote by mail ballot that they’d filled out, and then they’d have to surrender it and, you know, vote another ballot. And there’s a little frustration with that. We heard the voters and saw an opportunity to, to update our process,” Cervantes said.
Voter information guides will be sent out later this month with everything you need to know about voting.
“We’ll include a list of all the official drop boxes, with their ballot and with the voter information guide. So being able to see that, see it on a map and see what’s convenient for them, they can drop it off at any of them. we’re a voters’ choice county, so any vote center that’s convenient to them, they can drop it off or vote in person as well,” he said.
Even if you’re not doing express lane or vote by mail, this election season will have plenty of options so you can vote.
“So the next big change is that voters can go to any vote center and vote. So no longer are you assigned to your vote center. If you live in Hoopa and you work in Eureka and there’s a poll center next to work, you can vote there. Additionally, vote centers are open more days. And so we’ll have two vote centers open ten days before the election, one in Arcata and one in Fortuna,” said Juan Cervantes.
Story by Tucker Caraway
