As pressure mounts and attention rises over the the nation’s midterm election in November, a growing number of voters across more than half of California counties will be able to cast their ballots in-person up to 10 days earlier than counties with traditional polling locations.
That’s because those 30 counties have implemented the state’s Voter’s Choice Act, an optional voting model passed by lawmakers in 2016 to improve election accessibility for Golden State voters.
Those counties in the Bay Area include Sonoma, Napa, Marin, Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, as well as Santa Cruz. The most populous Southern California counties have also adopted the model.
In total, about 78% of the state’s registered voters, now at roughly 23 million, reside in Voter’s Choice Act counties, according to a 2025 report by the Public Policy Institute of California.
Most participating counties have been running the model for several election cycles now, offering more data for experts to assess whether the shift — away from the constellation of precinct-based polling stations — has improved access for voters, who now can cast their ballots at any of a more consolidated set of vote centers in their home county.
“Any voter from any precinct from anywhere in the county can go to any vote center and vote,” said John Tuteur, Napa County’s registrar of voters. “It did make voting, in my view, a lot easier for people who would not be able to vote otherwise.”
Experts said the model, also meant to facilitate earlier voting, has generally proved successful, expanding in-person voting opportunities. Still, mail ballots, sent by default to all registered voters in the state since 2020, remain the most popular option.
“One of the main things that people were thinking would happen is voter behavior would change and we would see more people voting earlier because we had more days of in-person voting available. Across the state we haven’t seen that,” said Tricia Webber, Santa Cruz county clerk and president of the California Association of Clerks and Elections Officials.
The VCA also calls for counties to offer multiple ballot drop box locations as an alternative to placing ballots in the mail.
The most notable shift has been among Black and Latino voters, according to Michael Rios, senior data scientist with the UCLA Voting Rights Project.
Since 2022, VCA counties have seen higher turnout among Black and Latino voters compared to counties with traditional polling places, Rios said, echoing similar findings in the recent PPIC report. In the past few election cycles, he noted, turnout among Latino voters alone has increased up to 2.5% in VCA counties.
One factor contributing to that trend is the flexibility offered by vote centers.
“We’re seeing these individuals who are largely working class, have the opportunity to go after work,” Rios said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re near their house or if they’ve commuted somewhere, as long as they’re in their county they could stop at a vote center and actually cast the ballot in person.”
Drop boxes have also contributed significantly to the higher turnout.
In the 2025 statewide special election, almost 9% of ballots were returned directly to vote centers. Latino voters, followed by Black voters, were drivers of that trend, Rios said.
Latino voters have a larger share of voters in the youngest bracket, ages 18-29, and have a larger number of first-time voters who might find the option to turn in their ballot in-person appealing, Rios said, hypothesizing on what has factored into that trend.
Tuteur and Webber said that across the board they are seeing a higher demand for ballot drop boxes.
“More voters drop off their ballots in their envelopes at an in-person location or at a drop box,” Webber said. “We’re seeing less come in through the mail, that’s the only shift I’ve seen.”
Webber attributed that shift to the slow pace of mail and growing mistrust nationwide of the U.S. Postal Service’s ability to timely deliver mail ballots to elections offices.
In Napa County, an overwhelming majority of voters — about 90% — were already voting by mail when the county implemented the Voters Choice Act, making the transition easy, Tuteur said. The number of people voting in-person has remained consistently low, but Tuteur still considers it a success.
“The VCA targets underserved voters, language minorities, the disabled, youth, seniors, others who have not had a high turnout history,” Tuteur said. “Even though it only serves 5% of our voters, those who actually use the vote centers, that’s 5%, people who otherwise wouldn’t vote.”
The challenge facing VCA counties and prospective VCA counties, is the model is resource heavy and takes quite a bit of upfront investment to implement. Tuteur estimated Napa County spent about $100,000 in startup costs for equipment and to rent vote center space.
Every election, the first vote centers open on a rolling basis starting as early as 10 days before Election Day.
The early opening requires finding space to rent for multiple days — more challenging compared to finding space for a single-day polling place, Tuteur and Webber noted — and staffing those locations for multiple days. Meanwhile, voters only trickle into the vote centers during those early days and some days will pass without a single voter stopping by, both elections officials said.
Vote centers in Santa Cruz will see some surge in activity on the first opening days but that voter traffic quickly peters out, Webber said.
Election Day remains the busiest day for voter activity.
In Napa County, Tuteur has tried to make up for that use of resources by employing the county’s one early voting center in American Canyon as a training ground for vote center workers in the lead up to Election Day.
“It works for us, but it is a waste of resources,” Tuteur said.
For Webber in Santa Cruz, the low in-person activity makes the cost of running the early centers harder to justify.
“We’re in financial distress and so trying to figure out how to make it work when we see a shrinking budget,” Webber said. “I had to cut close to 15% for this fiscal year, most likely I’m going to have to cut close to 15% for the next fiscal year.”
That said, Webber is not ready to write off the Voters Choice Act. Rather she’s hoping the state will amend the legislation to allow counties to adjust the VCA model to meet their needs. One such change would be more flexibility around the vote centers themselves.
“We (counties) do a lot of things the same but we’re not identical because our voters have different needs and that’s one thing that the VCA, in my opinion, needs to change is become a little bit more adaptive,” she said.
Going forward, the Voting Rights Project plans to study voting habits based on what days voters are casting ballots, Rios said.
For Rios, the voter trends that have emerged so far have made a compelling case that the Voters Choice Act has been successful.
“Just those two things alone, the vote centers and then the drop boxes, has really increased equity in voting for all voters, but especially voters of color who do want to actually participate in person,” he said.
You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MurphReports.
Last week of September: Voter guides set to arrive in mailboxes
Oct. 5: Ballots begin going out in mail.
Oct. 6: Official ballot drop boxes open.
Oct. 19: Last day to register online to vote in Nov. 3 election.
Oct. 24: First vote centers open for in-person voting and ballot drop-off.
Oct. 31: Full slate of vote centers open.
Nov. 3: Election Day, last day to vote.
Voters can check their registration status at voterstatus.sos.ca.gov.
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