Why is This Important?

Voting allows residents to participate in communitywide decision making. High voter turnout indicates that citizens are engaged and feel empowered to infl uence decisions affecting them. High voter participation is essential if public policy is to accurately reflect the will of the people. Low voter turnout can signal disenfranchisement and skew government's focus toward the desires of those who voted.

What is a Sustainable State?

A sustainable state is one where all community members are able participate in the democratic process by voting, and governments accommodate all citizens with a variety of registration and voting options.

How Are We Doing?

• 2009 was an "odd-year" election, with no major state or national offices on the ballot. Traditionally, odd-year election turnout is signifi cantly reduced compared with "even-year."
• There were two major election days for county voters in 2009. On May 19, voters weighed in on a special election for 6 statewide propositions (1A through 1F) related to revenue and budgeting. On November 3, most residents of the county had municipal, school, and special district elections, along with local measures.

• Turnout among the 482,604 eligible voters in the county for the May 19th statewide election was 23.4 percent. By comparison, 64.1 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the November 2008 general election. Still, turnout in this odd-year election was higher than the 2001, 2003, and 2007 odd-year elections. (In 2005, the governor called for a statewide special election on eight initiatives and turnout for that election was 41.5 percent.)
• Turnout of registered voters in the November 2009 municipal and local district elections was 27.9 percent.
• Voter participation in the county has regularly exceeded statewide turnout. Statewide participation in the May 2009 special election stood at 20.8 percent of eligible voters.
• Voter registration, which peaked before the November 2008 election, declined in 2009. Fifteen days prior to the November 2008 election, about 81.3 percent of eligible voters (those meeting all criteria for voter eligibility) were actually registered (about 390,000 voters). By May 2009, this number had fallen to 360,782 voters, or about 74.8 percent of eligible voters. By comparison, about 73.4 percent of eligible voters are registered statewide.
• Among county municipalities, the Town of Portola Valley had the highest turnout in the May special election, with 45 percent of registered voters casting ballots.