Santa Clara County Has Record Turnout for 2016 Presidential Election: Registrar of Voters

Last year’s presidential election set a record for the most ballots cast in Santa Clara County history, according to a new report.

Out of 875,176 registered voters, nearly 83 percent cast a ballot, according to the Registrar of Voters’ post-election analysis, which was released Friday. The turnout rate was the highest among the 10 California counties with the most registered voters.

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November’s election set new records not only for voter registration, but also the number of local ballot measures, ballot cards, recounted contests and percentage of online registration. The county also reported a record number of bilingual election officers and more ballots than ever picked up just before the polls closed.

In recent years, the county’s Registrar of Voters (ROV) has come under fire for mistake-laden ballots and taking too long to tally votes on election night and the days following. The release of the post-election report came eight months after the November election.

The numbers took longer to tally because of those record-breaking numbers, according to ROV Shannon Bushey. Large quantities of mailed, write-in and provisional votes as well as extended deadlines reportedly complicated the process.

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President Donald Trump could be credited with bringing more people to the polls in Santa Clara County, but that doesn’t mean the president fared well in the liberal South Bay. Hillary Clinton took 72.7 percent of the county’s votes for president, while Trump secured just 20.6 percent. Clinton also dominated the state of California, securing 61.7 of all votes, and defeated Trump in the popular vote with 48 percent to Trump’s 45.9 percent. Trump, of course, won the Electoral College.

Sen. Bernie Sanders garnered about half of the county’s qualified write-in votes for president, the report states. Independent write-in candidate Evan McMullin got about a quarter of all write-in votes. Because some people apparently like to do things the hard way, Clinton and Trump, also received write-in votes.

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Three candidates conducted write-in campaigns for local office. Saratoga City Council candidate Sudip Ghosal received the most—697 write-in votes, or about 3 percent of total votes for that contest.

Voter turnout was highest among people in their 60s and 70s and hovered around 80-something percent for most age groups, except people aged 18 to 24. Less than two-thirds of these new voters cast ballots.

Screen Shot 2017-07-10 at 10.57.58 AM Click here to read the report in its entirety.

9 Comments

  1. > and defeated Trump in the popular vote with 48 percent to Trump’s 45.9 percent.

    Cleverly phrased. Hillary-ites are fond of say that Hillary “won the popular vote”.

    But if the presidential vote is viewed as a broader preference for a governing philosophy, “Constitutional capitalism” won over “Social utopianism”.

    – Constitutional capitalists: Donald Trump, Gary Johnson, Evan McMullin total, 49.74%
    – Social utopians: Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, 49.09%
    – Write-ins and kookburgers, 1.17%

    If the electoral college votes were assigned on the basis of “Constitutional capitalists” versus “Social utopians”, the CC’s probably won more than Trump’s 306 electoral votes.

    The main reason that Hillary lost is probably because her campaign was underfunded. If she had just spent two billion on her campaign instead of only a billion, she probably would have won.

    • What an utterly asinine comment. No, it’s not “clever phrasing” to state the fact that Clinton won the popular (read: actual) vote by 2.1 percent. It’s just a fact.

      Your inexplicable, unsubstantiated comment about “governing philosophy” has nothing to do with official vote counts, and the reality that more people voted for Hillary Clinton than did Donald Trump.

      It hardly matters now, though: numerous Trump voters (53eig.ht/2sgSVhp) are now bitterly disappointed with the man they thought would bring them tax reform, the expulsion of petty illegals stealing their jobs—even though Trump’s disproportionate support came from the North as he underperformed in the actual areas unauthorized immigrants actually resided—The Wall, and actual, substantive policy regarding manufacturing jobs, not the minuscule rescue of a thousand-odd jobs because a medium-sized company was swayed by a president promising them benefits if they kept their jobs in the Untied States.

      His approval rating among *registered and likely voters (whatever the latter means thirty-eight months before the next presidential election* wouldn’t be sub-40 percent eight months into his first term, otherwise.

  2. > November’s election set new records not only for voter registration, but also the number of local ballot measures,

    My suspicion is that the high voter turnout in Santa Clara County was NOT driven by the presidential election but by ballot measures.

    Two things always get the Democrat base to turn out in big numbers: 1.) minimum wage increases, and 2.) rent control.

    We saw both of those in the 2016 election. Expect to see the same in 2020.

    Successful behavior is repeated.

  3. That’s because your election office, coordinated by SEC. of State Pedilla and Los Angeles, san Diego and orange County falsified and allowed thousands of illegals to vote. Lists of people registered but who haven’t voted regularly were turned over to the Democrats and organized groups were sent out to claim the names and vote w/o ID while being assisted by your election office. YOU STILL LOST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  4. The Registrar of Voter’s, in it’s largely self promotional report, giddily announces that on-line voter registrations now exceed written ones. It also proudly reports that voter registration will be increasing because of the recently passed motor voter legislation. In addition, it is delighted to report, mail in ballot numbers are now even with polling place ballot numbers.
    Every one of these progressive “innovations”, recklessly allowed in the misguided, simpletonminded belief that more ballots cast is always a good thing, increase the opportunity for, and likelihood of, voter fraud.
    But hey, who cares about rigged elections as long as they’re orchestrated by Democrats and not by those foreign villains, the Russians.

  5. How many if the so called voter are citizens vs. Illegal. Concerning since. California is against proof of.citizenship

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