As fate would have it, our hands here at the Sun are kind of tied when it comes to election coverage. By fate, I mean deadlines. Our paper goes to press on Tuesday, so we don’t get to share with you all the newsy election coverage our reporters are working on as I type this. Instead, we’ll get to delve into the races over the next week and bring you the most up-to-date information.
Besides, the polling information won’t be official for at least another week, thanks to our state’s relatively new vote-by-mail policy. Which I love, by the way. Flying down to my local polling place on Election Day is a hoot, don’t get me wrong. But this busy bird sometimes finds herself with too much going on—so putting the ballot in the mailbox or soaring over to the Elections Office weeks ahead of the rush is pretty sweet.
But according to early state tracking information as reported in the LA Times, early voter turnout is “dismal” at only 15 percent of registered voters having turned in their ballots early.
“Some 22 percent of voters had cast ballots at the same point before the last midterm primary election, in 2018, when ballots were not mailed to all California voters,” the LA Times reported.
We all had our ballots early. We all had the information in our hands ahead of time. Maybe some of us put our ballots in the mail on June 7? It’s still technically meeting the deadline (I’m definitely not looking at myself here). I do hope more of us turned in our ballots on the big day, otherwise we’ll be poised to break a dismal record we shouldn’t be breaking. Even if this is a “boring election,” let’s hope we do better than we did four years ago, before we had COVID-19, inflation, skyrocketing gas prices, infant formula shortages, and increasing interest rates to blame.
Speaking of dismal, what’s going on in Lompoc? And not just Lompoc—the whole county is seeing an increase in racial slurs and incidents, according to Lawanda Lyons-Pruitt, local NAACP president. She was reacting to the recent vandalism at Cabrillo High School, for which three suspects have been arrested and now likely face felony charges.
The school buildings were splattered with paint, windows were broken, concrete was poured in front of doors so they couldn’t open. Now that’s a lot of trouble to go to—you have to put thought and planning into pouring concrete!
“What occurred at Cabrillo High School wasn’t a prank. It was a premeditated and despicable hate crime that shocked the … school and our entire community,” Sheriff Bill Brown said on the Sheriff’s Office update blog.
I hope we’re shocked enough to turn this into a teachable moment, as Lyons-Pruitt would like to see.
“Some of it I would attribute it to we’re not doing a good job at home. It has to start at home with educating out kids about racism and about treating people with dignity and respect,” she said.
Lompoc and beyond, if you’re listening, invite caring organizations and people, as Lyons-Pruitt suggests, to your campuses, your after-school programs, your community gatherings to not only educate children and families about the destructive nature of hatred, but to model caring and compassion.
The Canary cares more than just a little. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 9-16, 2022.