Most Sutter County voters stayed home

The election of the nation's first black commander in chief and the battle over same-sex marriage energized California voters — but apparently less so in the Mid-Valley.

Voter turnout was far lower than expected in Yuba County for Tuesday's election, and Sutter County's turnout was the second lowest in the state.

In Colusa County, however, 72 percent of the 7,866 registered voters went to the polls or mailed in ballots, according to the office of Secretary of State Debra Bowen.

Siskiyou had the highest turnout rate at 88 percent, the state reported.

Terry Hansen, Yuba County's registrar of voters, had estimated as many as 80 percent of voters would show up, but final numbers turned into the Secretary of State's office around 2 a.m. Wednesday showed only 58 percent of people had actually voted.

"Figurewise, the turnout was pretty stable," Hansen said. "Mostly new voters turned out, which his good. But that increase didn't really affect the overall turnout."

Nearly 3,000 new voters registered in the county since June, according to Hansen. Yuba County has nearly 30,000 voters.

In Sutter County, only 43 percent of about 42,000 registered voters cast ballots, according to the county clerk's unofficial results on the county Web site. Donna Johnston, Sutter County registrar of voters, had predicted a high turnout before the election.

Only rural San Benito County south of San Jose reported a lower turnout in California, at 39 percent, according to the Secretary of State's office.

Yuba County went with the majority to ban same-sex marriage in the state's Proposition 8, but did not support Democratic Sen. Barack Obama in the presidential race.

Prop. 8, which passed statewide with the support of 52 percent of voters, received 67 percent support in Yuba County, or 11,365 votes. Roughly 5,411 voted against it.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain was ahead in the polls in Yuba County with 9,608, or 56 percent, compared to Obama's 7,107 votes, or 42 percent. Obama was declared the winner at 8 p.m. Pacific time Tuesday.

Sutter County voters also backed McCain and Prop. 8. Unofficial county figures gave the Arizona Republican 10,445 votes to Obama's 7,360 for a 58 percent share, while the anti-gay-marriage measure won 12,712 yes votes compared to 5,290 against.

Yuba County featured a two-page ballot, which added to the delay in results, included several local elected offices, federal races and state propositions. But only one race is too close to call pending the counting of an additional 4,000 vote-by-mail and provisional ballots.

The race for the Trustee Area 3 seat on the Marysville Joint Unified School District board remains up in the air with 117 votes separating incumbent Jim Flurry and Larry Patty, Hansen said. Flurry has 1,839 votes while Patty is at 1,722.

It was not immediately known how many vote-by-mail and provisional ballots remain to be counted within the trustee area.

County Web sites were updated with election results overnight and into Wednesday morning, but Yuba County's results were slow to post or decipher. Hansen said that was because a new program that would register how many precincts were reporting was too new to try during such a large election.

"I was not comfortable using a new utility on such short notice," she said. "I wanted to make sure everything was accurate when posted so I stayed with what I knew worked."

Sutter County updated vote counts online until late Tuesday night but declined to release updated results Wednesday. Johnston, the voter registrar, said the county canvass was to begin Wednesday afternoon.

That left open the outcome of the runoff election between Supervisor Larry Montna and his challenger, Rick Libby. Montna holds a 195-vote lead, a 6-percentage-point cushion, in his bid for a third term, with the county yet to include absentee votes from the campaign's final three days.