photo credit: Sonoma County Registrar of Voters Office

Tuesday is Election Day for the state primary, and so far, only about 15% of Sonoma County voters have returned their ballot.

KRCB News Director Greta Mart checked in with the county's head of elections, Registrar of Voters Evelyn Mendez, as she gears up for a busy week.

Evelyn Mendez: I am the new stand-alone registrar of voters for Sonoma County. It used to be combined with the county clerk, recorder, assessor, and now it's separated and now it's its own department. So I'm the first stand-alone R-O-V for this county.

Greta Mart: What are you responsible for?

Mendez: So my job is basically to oversee all of the elections.

So any election candidates that need to file petitions that need to come in, all the ballots, the vote information guide. Everything related to the election comes through our office.

Mart: Did you recently move office? Can you tell me about that?

Mendez: Yeah, so our office was at 435 Fiscal [Drive]. We moved to a brand new facility at 3880 Brickway Boulevard. So now we are down the street from the Charles M. Schultz Airport.

It's a bigger facility because our voters, I mean, we have more voters than we ever did. We're just outgrowing the space that we were in.

Mart: So that's where you do the ballot sorting and counting.

Mendez: Yeah, so the the office has everything. So we have our warehouse here, our counting room is here, all the ballots come in here. You can watch the entire process in our 1,100 square foot viewing window area space to see everybody every step of the process.

Mart: Let's talk about this election. Was this your first in the job?

Mendez: Well, this is my first like big statewide election in this county, but I actually come from 25 years at the Secretary of State's office, then six years at Santa Clara Registrar of Voters' Office. So, I'm not new to elections, I'm just new to Sonoma County.

Mart: Do you know how many ballots you sent out?

Mendez: Yeah, we sent over 320,000. 

Mart: And do you know how many you've gotten back yet?

Mendez: We have...about 50,000, I think right now. It's not a really good turnout yet, but we I mean the influx of people is probably going to be this weekend, and of course Monday and Tuesday. The majority of our ballots that come in the official ballot drop boxes will come in probably on Tuesday.

Mart: Can you straighten us out about postmarks? Can you explain all of that and what is really true and what people need to know about that?

Mendez: Yeah, as far as postmarks, I think people are used to when you get your mail, you get a postmark. Now the postmark is going to be a little bit different because it is going...to a different like sorting facility and it's getting postmarked there. So it's not necessarily going to be the same day that you drop it off.

So we want to tell voters if you are bringing it to a mailbox, bring it inside the post office so they can postmark it for you inside because if it doesn't have a postmark of before June 2nd or on June 2nd, then we cannot accept it. But that's because of what's happening with the post office sorting facilities. And I mean even in our area, the Petaluma main office...it's now going to San Francisco, getting postmarked there and then coming back here.

Drop it off at any of our vote centers. We have all of them open this weekend and 9:00 to 5:00 and then on election day until 8:00 p.m. So any vote center in the county or in one of our official ballot drop boxes, which we have 23 located around the county too because those get picked up every day from our our couriers.

Mart: Then on election day itself, probably best to either bring it into the polls or one of those boxes. correct?

Mendez: Yeah, that's that's exactly right. I mean at exactly 8:00 P.M., there will be somebody standing next to those boxes that will lock it. So you won't be able to put anything in it. But it's until 8:00 on Election Day in those official ballot drop boxes, not the post office box.

So go to a vote center or go to drop it in one of our drop boxes by 8:00 P.M. on Election Day and you're good to go.

Mart: All right, anything else you think folks need to know about the election?

Mendez: Just make sure get your ballot in early as as early as you can. We just want to make sure that your vote gets counted.

There is an option [called] where's my ballot, [on] sos.ca.gov where [voters] could track their ballots. So if you turn your ballot in and you want to know like was it received? Did we count it already? You can watch the entire process.