Did millennials turn out to vote in Santa Cruz County?

The polls are closed and the primary election turnout results are in. More people voted this year compared to the 2012 primary, but the Santa Cruz County Clerk is still disappointed with the numbers.

“Our turnout will ultimately end up higher than what it is today, maybe in the 50 to 60 percentile but if this were a grade on a test we’d be
failing,” said clerk Gail Pellerin.

As of Wednesday only 40 percent of the registered voters in Santa Cruz County have been counted. News Channel 5 compared that to 2012’s general election year primary which had only 39.8 percent. The county had much higher turnout in 2008 with nearly 70 percent of it’s registered voters casting a ballot.

Now that the polls have been closed, the clerks office said the real work begins. The county expects to get more than 18,000 vote by mail ballots which would bring up their voter percentage but not as high as they expected. Thousands of people had turned up for not only the Hillary Clinton’s rally on the Central Coast but Bernie Sanders as well. So where were all those voters Tuesday? KION asked that question at UC Santa Cruz.

“A lot of people think primaries don’t matter there’s a lot of statistics around that and maybe people are discouraged just by the nature of this election and it’s super polarized its really contentious there’s a lot of emotions behind it so maybe people think that their vote doesn’t matter,” said UCSC student Emily Viles.

Sanders has a lot of support from millennials but state results show that Clinton clinched the nomination. As far as who Bernie fans will root for now, one political expert said they won’t be siding with Republican candidate Donald Trump, in the November election.

The clerks office is already gearing up for November 8th and said it needs all the help it can get.

“This is a plea, this is a cry for help. One thing that happened yesterday is that we had a lot of cancellations and we were scrambling filling positions and election day can’t happen without those valuable poll workers out there at the polls,” said Pellerin.

PREVIOUS STORY: The polls are closed in California and voter turnout in Santa Cruz County isn’t what elections officials were hoping for this year.

Some are asking, what will happen to those young Bernie Sanders supporters?

KION’s Brandon Castillo speaks with U.C. Santa Cruz students and the county clerk, to look at voter turnout compared to previous years. He’ll have that story at 5 & 6.