Local races are reason why some San Francisco voters have yet to submit ballot

SAN FRANCISCO – Election Day is less than two days away, but the majority of San Franciscans’ ballots have not been returned yet.

According to the San Francisco Department of Elections, about 33% of vote-by-mail ballots have been returned.

City supervisor candidate Marjan Philhour spent her Sunday canvassing to get out the vote. She’s running against current City Supervisor Connie Chan.

Philhour says she’s talked to many voters who still haven’t submitted their ballots.

“I think in San Francisco voters take voting very seriously and I think many of them are probably going back to their high school and college days and are procrastinating,” Philhour said.

She thinks part of the reason is because of just how many decisions San Francisco voters are required to make to complete their ballot.

“We have a 300-page voter guide in San Francisco,” Philhour said.

Joe Asiano handed in his ballot on Sunday, he says the volume of ballot measures definitely slowed him down.

“I think because the book was pretty thick and there’s a lot of measures we had to consider and review and there’s some state ones,” said Asiano. “Locally we have a lot going on too.”

That sentiment was echoed by Kevin Born.

“It was a lot,” said Born. “It just felt like we’re making a lot of decisions and there was a lot of information in there and it was a lot to go through.”

Born hasn’t handed in his ballot yet. That’s because he doesn’t want to just drop it in any ballot box, he wants to take it directly to city hall.

“It just feels like that’s where we want to take it and there’s been weird stuff going on and we’re going to take it to city hall,” Born said.

For Asiano, he felt safe dropping his ballot at the box at the library.

He says he’s grateful to get to participate in the electoral process and now he’s just going to sit back and wait to see what happens next.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of action next week and I’m glad we did it and I hope everything is going to be OK,” said Asiano.

If people are concerned about the status of their ballot, they can use the California Secretary of State’s Where’s my ballot feature to track it themselves.