With voter registration deadline Monday, the city sets a record
Monday may be the last day to register to vote in the Nov. 6 election, but San Francisco already has a record number of people signed up to cast their ballots.
The 489,000 residents registered as of last Thursday tops the city’s previous record of 486,822 for the November 2004 election and is well above the 477,356 registered for the last presidential vote in 2008.
With the city’s population on the rise, San Francisco is looking at a potential half million registered voters in coming years, said John Arntz, the city’s elections chief.
“The numbers have been going up pretty good,” he said. “We didn’t lose too many when we cleaned up the voter rolls after the June election and registration is up more than I expected.”
That’s not a big surprise in San Francisco, where people traditionally love to vote.
As of Sept. 7, the last statewide report on voter registration, 77 percent of the city’s 602,836 voting-eligible residents already were registered to vote. That put San Francisco third among the 22 California counties with more than 200,000 eligible voters, trailing only Orange County (84 percent) and Placer County (79 percent).
Statewide, registration averaged about 73 percent of eligible voters. All those numbers will rise when the final pre-election registration comes out Nov. 2.
San Francisco’s numbers are still growing, with new registrations arriving at City Hall every day.
“The last day of registration is always a big day, so we expect to get more than 1,000 new registrations on Monday,” Arntz said.
Since September, Californians have been able to register on-line and that’s the fastest, easiest way to sign up to vote in the November election, Arntz said. California’s secretary of statehandles the on-line registration site, which can be found at registertovote.ca.gov.
Traditional paper registration forms also can be picked up at libraries, post offices and Department of Motor Vehicle offices.
To be eligible to vote Nov. 6, people must turn in their completed forms at local election offices or have them postmarked by Monday.
In San Francisco, the elections office in the basement of City Hall will be open until 8 p.m. Monday to register voters. By showing up a bit earlier, voters will be able to register and then vote immediately at the election department’s advance voting area, which closes at 5 p.m.