ANAHEIM (CNS) - Orange County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley and Honda Center officials today will preview a new super vote center at the home of the Anaheim Ducks.
The “Super Vote Center Site'' at Honda Center, which will open Oct. 30, will provide a centrally located location for voters to drop off or fill in ballots for the Nov. 3 election. Kelley said the site will provide an ideal place for voters to cast a ballot in person while also adhering to social distance guidelines for COVID-19.
Kelley said he has “gotten a lot of feedback from seniors,'' who want to vote in person but are leery of contracting coronavirus. So when Honda Center executives approached him, he jumped at the chance, expecting the location could draw thousands of voters.
“The real value here is that concourse is the perfect space for a lot more voting booths and opportunities for voting and socially distancing people out,'' Kelley said. He'll have 15,000 feet to work with.
“That's 10 times the size of our largest vote center,'' Kelley said.
Some voting booths will be inside Honda Center, but voters will also get a chance for “drive through'' service that allows for ballots to be dropped off.
Some voters who fill out a mail-in ballot at home could drop it off at Honda Center. Or, motorists could request a ballot from their car, go park and fill it out and then drop it off from their vehicle, Kelley said.
There will be 42 vote center locations with drive-through service throughout the county, Kelley said.
“We didn't have that in March'' for the primary election, Kelley said.
Those mobile, drive-through vote centers will open on Oct. 30 and be available through Nov. 3, Kelley said.
The county will also have 116 drop boxes, six more than in March, throughout the county where voters can drop off a mail-in ballot, Kelley said. Those drop boxes will be available starting Oct. 5.
Kelley said he understands the concerns of some voters about fraud, but he feels confident his office can collect and county ballots accurately and safely.
“I wouldn't discount their concerns. We need to address it,'' Kelley said. “There's vulnerabilities in any human system, but it's our obligation to plug them... But while I understand the concerns, Benjamin Franklin was talking about this in the 1700s. This is ongoing stuff... My job is to make sure it's as secure and accurate a process as possible and we're doing that.''
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