It’s official—Santa Barbara County certified its 2020 general election results on Nov. 25, marking the completion of an election that was extraordinary in more than one way, including the sheer volume of voter turnout nationwide.
In Santa Barbara County, more registered voters cast ballots in this election than in any of the last five presidential elections, dating all the way back to the 2000 race between Al Gore and George Bush. There were 220,274 Santa Barbara County residents registered to vote in that election, according to data available on the Santa Barbara County Registrar of Voters website, and around 155,000 actually voted.
This year, 235,198 residents registered to vote, and 86 percent of those registered—203,506—cast a ballot. That amounts to about a 30 percent increase in votes in Santa Barbara County since 2000, and an 11 percent jump from 2016, when President Donald Trump faced off against Hillary Clinton.
Santa Barbara County’s upward trend aligns with a national increase in voter turnout. While only about 54 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2000 presidential election nationwide, a little more than 66 percent of eligible voters did so in this year’s election, according to data collected by the United States Elections Project.
While election officials have largely pointed to America’s passionate feelings over the COVID-19 pandemic and the Trump administration as reasons for the turnout, some say this year’s record-breaking numbers are suspect. That includes Andy Caldwell, a local conservative radio talk show host who lost his bid to represent the 24th Congressional District to incumbent Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) by about 17 points and 62,783 votes in SLO, Santa Barbara, and northern Ventura counties.
“I can accept the fact that I lost,” Caldwell told the Sun, “and I can even take a beating.”
But, he said, considering the money his team raised and effort they put into campaigning, he said such a massive loss isn’t adding up. In a Nov. 22 Facebook post, Caldwell suggested that the landslide could have been related to voter fraud.
In the post, Caldwell mentioned a theory that Dominion Voting Systems, which maintains voting machines in several states, may have added up to 35,000 votes to Democratic candidate totals throughout the nation. Although many Democratic and some Republican officials have dismissed the accusation, it was made popular among right-wing Americans by attorney and Trump ally Sidney Powell.
“What would that mean for my race against Salud?” Caldwell wrote in the post. “I would have beat him!”
Carbajal received between around 95,000 and 99,000 Santa Barbara County votes in both the 2016 and 2018 general elections. That support shot up to about 124,584 in this election, and at a time when Caldwell said Carbajal’s “base”—UC Santa Barbara students—aren’t even living on campus. Caldwell said he’s not convinced that UCSB students who are attending school from homes outside of Santa Barbara County during the pandemic should be allowed to vote in the region’s elections.
He also said he’s not convinced that more people nationwide would vote in this election than in a race for the first woman president or first president of color.
Still, Caldwell said he can’t say yet whether voter fraud really did happen in this year’s election. He’s waiting to see what happens nationally before he comes to any conclusions. And if fraud did happen, he doesn’t think election officials in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties are to blame.
“So if anything like this happened,” Caldwell told the Sun, “it happened beyond our immediate control or influence. That’s what I believe.”
Santa Barbara County Elections Official Joseph Holland couldn’t be reached for comment before press time.
This article appears in Dec 3-10, 2020.