IF CASTING A BALLOT at a funeral home sounds ghoulish, know that at least 230 of your fellow voters would apparently beg to disagree.
San Joaquin County’s top election official says there are no plans to abandon including De Young Shoreline Chapel as one of the city’s many polling places when it comes to primary and general elections.
Yes, it’s a funeral home — a far cry from the usual mix of fire stations, school auditoriums, community centers, residential garages and other more typical polling places. Including the Shoreline Drive funeral home on the list for the June 2 primary election raised eyebrows as word about it spread this past election season.
“It has been used for the past 14 years and served over 230 voters in this election alone,” county Registrar of Voters Olivia Hale told the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors last week. “We have not received any complaints from voters in that precinct. And we do not intend to the move the polling location as we try to keep locations the same wherever possible.”
The funeral home tidbit was included in a recap for the board about the primary, which concluded June 25 with certification of results. Though arriving 23 days after polls closed, it was the soonest date that that the state allowed certification and was ahead of many other counties, Hale said.
She said she was pleased with the mix of options for casting ballots. They included of polling places, drop boxes and mail in an election that drew participation from about a third of the county’s 410,000 registered voters.
All of the county’s 27 drop boxes saw use by voters, who just wanted to drop off ballots they prepared in advance rather than mail them in. They ranged from 5,092 ballots at the drop box in Tracy City Hall to 105 at a Circle K convenience store.
The U.S. Mail was by far the most popular way to vote. Some 60,944 ballots came by mail compared to 39,411 in drop boxes and 24,804 at polling places. She said 2,700 ballots from all sources were spoiled in some manner. Some were “curable” and others not. And 2,900 of the mail-in ballots arrived past the June 2 postmark deadline.
In light of delays in reporting of initial results on election night, Hale said her office will make some changes.
“We are improving how we communicate reporting expectations,” she said. But overall, she said the election was “very successful.”
This story originally appeared in Stocktonia.