photo credit: Courtesy of county elections website
Sonoma County's County Clerk-Recorder-Assessor-
Registrar of Voters Deva Marie Proto.

California’s primary election is coming up on March 5, and ballots are arriving in Sonoma County mailboxes this week.

KRCB News checks in with the head of Sonoma County’s elections office:

PROTO: My name is Deva Marie Proto. I'm the Sonoma County Registrar of Voters.

KRCB: Can you tell us all about the primary election? What do Sonoma County voters need to know?

PROTO: Well, they should know that ballots will be sent out to all active registered voters on February 5th, and you will be able to choose how you return those ballots. Or if you want to, you can vote in person. We will have seven locations across the county that open on the 24th. They'll all be open from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM every day. And then the Saturday before the election, we will have 31 total vote centers across the county that will all be open from nine to five on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. And then 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM on election day, March 5th. And any voter can choose to go to any location in the county. You can return your vote by mail ballot there, you can vote in person or you can get assistance. And then on top of that, we also have 21 ballot drop boxes throughout the county that people can choose to return their ballots.

KRCB: Okay, got it. Earlier in the week, I spoke to a candidate for Democratic Committee. What can you tell us about that race? It's unusual?

PROTO: We do have central committee races occasionally. We have a couple of them on this ballot, and so only members of who are registered with that particular party will see those races on the ballot, I believe it's for leadership positions within the different parties; the Democratic and the Republican parties are the ones that have races on the ballot this particular election.

KRCB: Okay. But not everyone will see it. And same thing, you can vote for your presidential candidate just by the party, correct?

PROTO: Correct. This the presidential primary, so the presidential races are really driven by the party and the party rules. So we have different parties in the county, and if you are registered with one of those parties, you will only see the candidates for that particular party. If you're no party preference, and you don't request a crossover ballot, I should say, you will not see presidential candidates on your ballot. You will be able to request a crossover ballot for parties that are participating. And there's instructions on the ballot to that effect.

KRCB: There's going to be a local measure, Measure H. What other local measures are there? 

PROTO: We have a couple o, school measures that are across the county, and then we also have the one countywide measure.

KRCB: Okay. Then there's one proposition, just Prop 1, is that correct? Statewide?

PROTO: That is correct.

KRCB: Okay. Got it. All right. Anything else that I haven't asked you that you'd like folks to know?

PROTO: Just that, we appreciate that if they have any questions, they can go to our website. We have a lot of information on our website. We're happy to answer any questions that people have about the process. And we'll, like I said, we have information on the measures and the candidates on our website, as well as what we're mailing out to everybody in the voter information guide.

KRCB: What's the turnout? Has voter turnout been going up, down, staying the same? What's your general impression?

PROTO: It's generally been,,,we have a pretty good turnout in Sonoma County. We have a lot of really engaged people, which is fantastic. And for a presidential primary, we're generally about a 65% turnout. So we'll be able to see if that holds true once we start receiving ballots back.