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Ballots in the mail as Turlock gears up for mayoral debate
Turlock mayoral candidates
FROM LEFT: Incumbent Mayor Amy Bublak and challengers Jim Reape and Kelley Coelho will participate in a public debate at Stanislaus State on Oct. 7 (Photos contributed).

Stanislaus County sent out ballots on Monday for the Nov. 3 general election, and they should be arriving in mailboxes in the next few days, if they haven’t already.

Returning completed ballots as quickly as possible is a help to Registrar of Voters Donna Linder and her busier-than-normal staff, but Turlock voters may want to hold off until after tonight’s mayoral debate between incumbent Mayor Amy Bublak and challengers Jim Reape, who sits on the Turlock Planning Commission, and Kelley Coelho, a private investigator.

The debate, which will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Stanislaus State Events Center, is being co-hosted by CSUS, the Modesto Focus, and the Turlock Journal.

debate parking map
The Turlock mayoral candidate debate being held at 6 p.m. today in the Event Center on the campus of Stanislaus State is free and open to the public. Free parking is available in Lot 8, which is accessed off of Geer Road, north of the Monte Vista Avenue intersection. Signs will be posted indicating the path from the parking lot to the Event Center. Golf cart transportation will be available for guests as needed.

Kristina Hacker, editor of the Journal, and Garth Stapley, a longtime local journalist who now writes for the Focus, will moderate the event.

The candidates will be allowed to give a two-minute opening statement – names will be drawn to determine the order – and then they will answer questions by the moderators and some from the audience. Answers to questions will be limited to one minute, with time for a 30-second rebuttal upon request.

Pencils and paper will be provided for the audience to write their questions. No oral questions from the audience will be permitted.

The candidates already have met once on the dais, with all three taking part in the Be Informed candidates forum Sept. 12 in Ceres that was sponsored by the Stanislaus Latino Chamber of Commerce.

Once voters are finished marking their ballots, they can be delivered to any number of drop boxes around the county, though voters can still go into vote centers and cast their ballots the old-fashioned way.

Last-minute mail-in ballots that are postmarked Nov. 3 have until Nov. 10 to reach Linder’s Modesto office and, by law, must be counted. But Linder cautioned that Stanislaus County mail is sent all the way to Sacramento to be postmarked. Mail that is dropped into a county mailbox on election day still has to make the trek to Sacramento and might not be postmarked in time.

Additionally, Assembly Bill 5 allows for vote-by-mail ballots to be counted 13 days after the election.

“Those are the vote-by-mail that the signatures compared correctly, and everything was fine with them,” said Linder before the June 2 primary election. “They’re not conditional or provisional ballots or ones that need a signature-comparison completed.”

Here is a list of local vote centers and drop boxes that are open to the public:

Turlock

  • Turlock City Hall, 156 S. Broadway, Suite 230, Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
  • Turlock Public Library, 550 N. Minaret Ave., Monday, Tuesday, Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday from noon to 8 p.m., and Friday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
  • Save Mart, 2595 Geer Road, Monday-Thursday from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. (but no later than 8 p.m. on election night), Friday-Sunday from 6 a.m. to midnight.
  • Save Mart, 1631 Lander Ave., Monday-Thursday from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. (but no later than 8 p.m. on election night), Friday-Sunday from 6 a.m. to midnight.
  • FoodMaxx, 1845 Countryside Drive, seven days a week, 6 a.m. to midnight (but no later than 8 p.m. on election night).

Denair

  • Denair Public Library, 4801 Kersey Road, Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Hughson

  • Hughson City Hall, 7018 Pine St., Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Outdoor drop boxes will be accessible 24 hours, but will close at 8 p.m. on election night, Nov. 3. They are located at Stanislaus State, 1 University Circle, in Turlock, Bonita Elementary School, located at 425 Fink Road in Crows Landing, Burchell Nursery, located at 12000 Highway 120 in Oakdale, Salida Library, located at 4835 Sisk Road in Salida, and the Stanislaus County Registrar of Voters Office, 1021 I St., Modesto.

Curbside drop boxes are located at Gallo Center for the Arts at 1000 I St. in Modesto, the Stanislaus Culinary Arts Institute at 1040 Wakefield Drive in Oakdale, and at Stanislaus State.

Any resident of Stanislaus County can utilize any drop box or vote center, regardless of their home address.