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The November 4, 2008 general elections may well become one of the most-watched elections in modern history in the United States.
Not since the Al Gore-George W. Bush push to the White House nearly a decade ago has there been more drama in the presidential race. Add to the fact that many Propositions in the ballot have become rallying cries for community activists from both sides of the fence (Propositions 7 and 8, for instance), and you have a brewing volcano ready to explode come voting day.
For the more than 16 million registered voters in California (16,171,772 to be exact, according to the Sept. 5 Report of Registration by the California Secretary of State website), the battle now is between exercising their right to vote on polling day, or wasting their chance to speak their minds by not going to the precincts they are registered to vote at.
Election Day (Nov. 4) falls on a Tuesday, a day which may make it cumbersome to trek to the voting booth. However, the California Secretary of State office and other election offices have tried to make voting easier for the public since low turnouts among registered voters have been experienced during the last few elections, including a low 28.22% turnout during the June 3, 2008 Statewide Primary Elections.
For those who want to cast their votes on Election Day, polling places will be open from 7am to 8pm. Each county designates the polling place for each voter and mails a sample ballot to each voter telling them where to vote on Election Day. If you are a registered voter and have not received your the sample ballot or any election information, contact your county elections official by going to the California Secretary of State website at www.sos.ca.gov.
As a registered voter, you may have received a vote-by-mail ballot at least seven days before an election. This just means that you belong to a precinct with fewer than 250 voters. Vote-by-mail ballots must be received by elections officials no later than the close of polls at 8pm on Election Day. Those returning vote-by-mail ballots on the day of the elections can do so at any polling place in the county or to the county elections office. If you are disabled or are ill and unable to return the vote-by-mail ballot yourself, you can designate a spouse, child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, sibling or a person residing in the same household to return the ballot to the elections official or the precinct board at any polling place within the jurisdiction.
In some places, county elections officials have made several voting options for registered voters so they can vote with ease or avoid the Election Day rush.
San Mateo County, for instance, issued a news release last October 24 stating that their elections offices in 40 Tower Road (City of San Mateo) and 555 County Center (Redwood City) are available for voting on weekdays and on the two Saturdays (Oct. 25 and Nov. 1) preceding Election Day.
Weekday voters can go into any of the two offices and vote for their candidates and on any ballot measures from 8am to 5pm. Weekend voters, meanwhile, have from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to cast their votes. Parking (limited to a half-hour) is even being offered free for early voters, certainly a bonus for those wishing to transact their business at the election offices.
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3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."
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