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Absentee ballots will be mailed out Monday and people can begin voting in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties for the June primary election. The last day to register to vote in the June 5 primary election is May 21.
The last day to request a vote-by-mail ballot is May 29. People who will be 18 on or before June 5 can register to vote now, said Debi Russell, Tuolumne County clerk, auditor and controller. “We highly hope you register today,” Russell said. People who are registered to vote by mail can drop their completed ballots off at the elections office in person or complete ballots in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties starting Monday. Those who vote by mail can drop off ballots at elections offices starting Monday. Any registered voter can vote early at elections offices starting Monday. Any person eligible to vote can register at the elections office at any time, Russell said. Tuolumne County’s elections office is at 2 S. Green St., Sonora. In Calaveras County, the office is at 891 Mountain Ranch Road, San Andreas. People who are not registered to vote by mail and want to vote on election day, June 5, can vote at their local polling place or the county elections office. As of Wednesday, there were 31,104 registered voters in Tuolumne County. There are 10,116 registered Democrats and 13,236 registered Republicans. Another 5,879 people are registered “No Party Preference.” NPP means the voter cannot vote for Republican candidates in the primary election, Russell said. NPP registrants can only vote for Democratic and American Independent Party candidates, because those parties allow for the crossover, Russell said. Of the registered voters in the county, 67 percent, or 20,903, are registered absentee voters. In the June 2010 primary election, there were 31,810 registered voters in Tuolumne County. Of the registered voters, 16,558, or 52 percent, cast ballots in the election, Russell said. Fifty-six percent of people who cast ballots were Democrats and 65 percent were Republicans. Only 19 percent of the 5,778 registered “No Party Preference” voters cast ballots in the June 2010 primary. In the upcoming June election, there are races for U.S. presidential candidates, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives (Congress) and the California state Assembly. There are 25 candidates for the U.S. Senate race. There are six candidates for the Assembly District 5 race, which encompasses Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Madera, Mariposa, Mono, Placer and Tuolumne counties. The district includes 230,174 registered voters. About 32 percent are Democrats and 43 percent Republicans. The candidates are Mark Boyd, Frank Bigelow, Mark Belden, Kevin Lancaster, Rico Oller and Tim Fitzgerald. The fourth-district Congressional race is between candidates Republican Tom McClintock and Democrat Jack Uppal. The district encompasses Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Fresno, Madera, Mariposa, Nevada, Placer and Tuolumne counties. There are 395,565 registered voters in the district, of which 29.56 percent are Democrats and 46.13 percent are Republicans, according to the Secretary of State website. Local races in Tuolumne County include three seats on the county Board of Supervisors. Liz Bass, Sherri Brennan, Randy Cofer, Jim Garaventa and Jim Hildreth are facing off for District 1. John Gray and Nolan Matter will compete for District 4. Michael Macomber, Jim O’Neil, Karl Rodefer, Domenic Torchia and Jason Frye are on the ballot for the District 5 seat. There are two Superior Court seats opening up with Eleanor Provost and Gregory Oliver competing for one, and Donald Segerstrom and Alex Aretakis competing for the other. Three seats are up for election on the Sonora City Council, with five candidates, William Canning, David Sheppard, Ronald Stearn, Connie Williams and David Axelrod. There are also two local measures on the ballot — a fire tax for residents in the Groveland Community Services District, and an expansion of the county’s 10-percent Transient Occupancy Tax to include privately-run campgrounds, RV camps and houseboats, which will be on ballots in the unincorporated areas of the county, not on ballots for residents of Sonora city limits.
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