Sonoma County Voters Mail It In For 2020 General Election

ROHNERT PARK-COTATI, CA — Sonoma County saw sky-high numbers for voter registration, but exceptionally low in-person voter turnout in the 2020 general election, including among registered voters in Rohnert Park and Cotati.

Mail-in ballots were particularly popular this year amid the coronavirus pandemic. The night before Election Day, more than 2.7 million Bay Area voters had already cast ballots. Going into Election Day, Sonoma County had already received and processed 196,148 ballots.

On Election Day, Sonoma County registrar Deva Marie Proto was one of the few in the Bay Area who seemed busy by mid-afternoon. She said there were lines, and they were trying to process people as quickly as possible.

Some 300,840 Sonoma County residents were registered to vote as of Tuesday night. A total of 200,584 ballots were cast in the Nov. 3 election, bringing the overall turnout to around 66 percent.

Roughly 4 percent of registered Sonoma County voters opted for in-person polling places for the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Some 12,500 votes for president were cast in-person by Sonoma County registered voters on Election Day, while the other 185, 027 were vote-by-mail ballots.

In Cotati, 2,967 ballots were cast for Measure S: 2,739 were vote-by-mail ballots while 228 ballots — around 7 percent — were cast in-person.

In District 1 of the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District, 3,328 votes were cast: 3,114 by mail and 214 — about 6 percent— in person on Election Day.

Statewide, more than 11.2 million of California's more than 21 million registered voters had already voted. Nationwide, the number exceeded 100 million by Monday evening -- almost 70 percent of the 136.5 million people who voted in 2016.

Elections officials have 30 days to certify the results of the election. During those 30 days, election officials continue counting vote-by-mail and provisional ballots.

Election results are considered semi-official until certified Dec. 11 by California secretary of state.

Bay City News Service and Patch editor Courtney Teague contributed to this report.