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Mendocino County Assessor County Clerk Recorder Susan Ranochak said her office has been busy tabulating vote by mail ballots since Friday afternoon. According to Ranochak, (who is retiring this year and whose job is up for grabs in this primary) staff emptied the drop off box in front of the Ukiah office on Tuesday containing approximately 300 ballots, but it was too soon to know how many would be left to process by the end of the day.
“This is definitely a midterm primary,” she said, indicating it had not been a tremendously busy election day morning. “If this was a presidential election we would have people standing waiting for us to hand them ballots.”
Typically a midterm elections sees a smaller turnout. For example, she noted the 2014 elections netted a 25 percent result statewide, although Ranochak said Mendocino County typically does a bit better.
“I will be happy to get 45 percent,” she said. “We’ll see what happens.”
As the second wave the counted ballots came in Tuesday night around 11 p.m. Bartolomie was in the lead for the Clerk-Assessor job with 4,279 votes or 66.93 percent, Larson in second place with 1142 votes and 17.86 percent and Kroppman in third with 949 votes and 14.84 percent.
These are just the initial numbers coming from the county website and are not, by far, the final results. The final tallies are never ready from the clerk’s office until two or sometimes three weeks from tonight.
All three candidates vying for the position of assessor and county clerk recorder boast of the experience necessary to maintain and preserve County records and all concur that improving the efficiency in the voting process and having a paper ballot process in place to mitigate risks posed by internet online voting were important components of handling elections and doing away with tampering in Mendocino County.
In the past, Mendocino has had the highest percentage of uncounted ballots in the state, leaving residents with some uncertainty about some local races since final results don’t come in until weeks later at times.
Katrina Bartolomie, 59, cites experience as an assistant registrar of voters since 2006, clerk recorder since 2009 and dealing with media and the public in critical times as assets as a candidate.
Dirk Larson, 51, cited 24 years of experience in the county assessor’s office with an extensive knowledge of residential and commercial properties as well as advanced certification in property assessment standards from the California State Board of Equalization as experience and knowledge necessary to implement tax laws vital to all citizens. Jeanette Kroppman,52, cited various positions held including real property appraiser, and 15 years working for the elections department in various capacities including precinct inspector as experience required to hold the position.
At a recent forum, Larson said the county was moving toward becoming an “all mail-in” county and added that the county had a need for including more people in the ballot counting process.
Bartolomie said it was important for department staff to befriend members of the public in order to help with the count and processing of vote by mail ballots. Although a more efficient department is sought by all, according to Kroppman, one of the toughest challenges faced by the department is funding has been lost for key staffing and resources and it’s going to take work to get the funds back by asking the board of supervisors to reconsider funding for a number of important positions.
