It’s less than two weeks until the California primary election, and experts are predicting the turnout for Latino voters will be very low again.
The latest statewide figures show that only 3% of mail-in ballots have been returned, and Latinos are at the bottom of the list.
In Santa Clara County, workers have counted almost 61,000 mail-in ballots so far. That’s 5.8% of the county’s 1 million voters.
The statewide numbers are worse. According to politicaldata.com, only 3% of statewide ballots have been mailed back.
The data shows 4% of voters who identify as white have already voted, 3% of Asian voters have, 3% of Black voters have, and lagging behind are Latinos, with only 2% casting ballots in California so far.
"The picture does look dismal in the primaries," Evergreen Valley College political science Professor Andres Quintero said. "It's very disheartening for those who do pay attention to electoral politics."
He fears holding the primary in March instead of June might have something to do with it.
"You can go ahead and lay blame on voters themselves, but there’s a lot of blame that needs to be leveled against the campaigns," he said.
Paul Villarreal wasn’t going to be part of the statistics. He dropped off his ballot Friday morning.
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"I think it’s important for everybody," he said. "For myself, it’s the thing to do to help out our country, get it straightened out."
