California will receive a record number of mail-in votes while an estimated 8 million Californians head to the polls for Tuesday’s primary, according to projections in the latest Field poll.
If this estimate proves correct, turnout will include 44.7 percent of the state’s registered voters and 32.3 percent of Californians who are eligible to vote.
Five of the 8 million people voting Tuesday will be casting their ballots by mail. This is a considerable increase from the state’s 2012 and 2008 primaries where 3.5 and 3.8 million votes were cast by mail, respectively, and it is a fourteen-fold increase from the 344,000 mail-in votes that were cast in 1980.
This increase can be attributed to the 2004 measure that allowed all California voters to include their names on a permanent mail ballot registry where, in the weeks leading up to any election, California registered voters receive their official ballot in the mail. Now, 9.2 million people are included on the mail ballot registry making voting by mail the most popular form of casting a ballot in California.
Even with this convenient form of voting though, California will not necessarily see a substantial increase in voter turnout in the 2016 presidential primary. The Field poll found that, if 8 million people vote, the turnout percentage will be in between the state’s voter participation in 2008 and 2012 where 57.7 percent of voters cast votes in 2008 and 31.1 percent cast votes in 2012.
