Merced Mysteries & Minutiae: Voter registration increasing as deadline approaches

As California’s primary creeps closer and closer, interest in the presidential race grows while Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have all but clinched nominations.

And, it appears Merced County residents, as well as Californians, want a say.

In one week, about 1,000 Merced County residents registered to vote. On Friday, the latest numbers showed 90,500 residents were registered.

“This election is not just a presidential one, it’s a change of administration,” said David Sullivan, assistant registrar of voters for the county. “That always makes numbers higher.”

Monday is the one-week mark for residents to register to be eligible to vote June 7.

Sullivan said Merced County ranks low among the 58 counties on what percentage of the population is registered to vote.

Since the last presidential race in 2012, the numbers have fluctuated due to voter maintenance. Many voters moved to Madera or Stanislaus counties and registered there, but still also were registered in Merced, Sullivan said. The number of registered voters in the county still trails 2012 by about 5,000.

A 27-year-old Merced woman said she thought the steps to register to vote should be easier to find, so she made an instructional video about it on her smartphone.

MaryAnn Gentry, an alumna of Merced High, said she wanted to register to vote recently but thought all the steps could be summed up and easy to follow. So she headed to the registrar of voters office earlier this month, taking photos and screenshots on her phone to use on the video.

“The information isn’t out there (in a video),” she said. “If you can post it, make a video out of it, maybe you catch somebody’s eye.”

Sullivan said there are many voter registration drives still going on led by groups such as the Merced Organizing Project and California Voter Project 2016, as well as efforts led by the Democratic and Republican parties.

The Associated Press reported that more Democrats are registered in the state than Republicans, partly because of an incentive to vote for or against Donald Trump. Statewide, 7.54 million are registered Democrat, 4.75 million Republican and 4.12 million declared no party.

To register to vote online at http://registertovote.ca.gov, you’ll need a California driver’s license or identification, the last four digits of your Social Security number and your date of birth.

To check if you’re registered to vote, you can go online to the county’s elections website and use your birthday and driver’s license number.

Sullivan said that despite rumors, every ballot the elections office receives on time is counted.

Vote-by-mail ballots should be arriving in mailboxes soon. They can be dropped off any time at the election office. Sullivan recommends mailing them a week ahead of June 7 to guarantee they arrive on time. For more information about drop-box locations for mail-in ballots, call 209-385-7541.

This story was originally published May 15, 2016 at 3:53 PM with the headline "Merced Mysteries & Minutiae: Voter registration increasing as deadline approaches."