Voter Turnout Low, Locals 'Lose Interest'

Only 28 percent of registered voters in Riverside County -- about 200,000 people -- cast a ballot in Tuesday's election.

This is nearly as low as half of the last presidential primary, when 55.6 percent of registered county voters participated.

Registrar of Voters' Rebecca Spencer attributes this to the nature of this year's election --  the candidates for the November presidential race are all but decided.

"People lose interest," she said.

A comparison may be unfair, because this one is different from the last in other ways too, Spencer said. "There aren't really any elections to compare this one to."  

This is the first year in which the presidential primary was consolidated with the statewide measures and congressional races.

In the June 2008 statewide races, which were separate from the presidential primary, 23.5 percent of the county's voters participated, Spencer said. In the 2010 governor primary, 31.03 percent voted.

Of those who voted, slightly more were registered Republicans versus Democrats, according to data from the Riverside County registrar's office.

As of Tuesday morning, a total of 189,087 ballots had been tallied in the election.  However, another estimated 50,000 remain uncounted for various reasons, according to the registrar's office.

"Approximately 38,000 vote by mail, 7,000 Provisional, and 4,200 damaged ballots that require duplication still must be processed," an announcement on the registrar's website read Wednesday.  "Work on those ballots begins tomorrow."

Breaking Down the Turnout

Election Results

For most races in this election, voters were just narrowing down the field of candidates to two, whom will then advance on in November.  However, since many of our local races, like the race for US Representative, State Assembly and State Senator only had two candidates to begin with-- all of those people will advance on by default.

Prop. 28 and prop. 29, two hot-button issues throughout the state, were decided in this election.

As of Tuesday, though some votes may still roll in, state results indicate that Proposition 28-- limiting the amount of time state legislators can serve in office from 14 years to 12 years-- has passed.

However, it appears that Proposition 29-- a proposal to add a $1-per-pack tax on cigarettes and other equivalent tobacco products-- has not passed.  The margin between the "yes" and "no" votes is just over 1 percent, though, so late-arriving ballot counts may still sway things.

That said, here are the Riverside County results for the main elections on which Banning and Beaumont residents held a stake:

Click here to see the full list of Riverside County election results.

Click here to check out statewide totals for the election.