Melissa West and Erika Perloff are dressed as voting machines as they grab attention from motorists passing the Town Clock on Tuesday. (Dan Coyro — Santa Cruz Sentinel)	
SANTA CRUZ — Election enthusiasm swept through Santa Cruz as voters cast ballots in one of the most highly anticipated midterms in modern history Tuesday.
Dressed in homemade ballot-box costumes, Santa Cruz resident Erika Perloff and a friend danced and waved signs to encourage voters at a busy downtown intersection Tuesday morning, while passing motorists honked in support.
“If I can inspire even one person to remember to get to the polls, then I feel like I’ve done something,” said Perloff, 58. “It’s nice to be out here and share the enthusiasm with people passing by about this incredible right we have, which is to vote and elect people for issues that are important to us — whether it’s school board or about housing or state issues.”
Results were not available by press time, but county officials held hopes for a record turnout to match record levels of voter registration, both in Santa Cruz County and statewide.
“It feels like everybody is voting,” said Santa Cruz County Clerk Gail Pellerin, who oversees the county election and donned a red-white-and-blue striped sweater for the occasion.
By Tuesday afternoon, more than 1,000 voters had taken advantage of California’s new same-day registration rules to cast provisional ballots at the Governmental Center on Ocean Street, Pellerin said — more than double the number of same-day registrants seen in the June primary.
Many of those waiting to register Tuesday were young voters, a demographic that has largely stayed on the sidelines during previous midterm elections.
“With everything that’s happened in the last couple of years, I feel that it’s more important than ever for young voters to actually get out there and do their part,” said Cole Gilbert, 21. A resident of Live Oak who recently moved to the area from San Jose, Gilbert said he’d mistakenly believed he was registered to vote by mail at his new address.
“Obviously, I guess I didn’t, but I came here and was able to get in and vote with relative ease,” he said. “It was super easy.”
At UC Santa Cruz, hundreds of students waited in the same-day registration line at Bay Tree Bookstore early Tuesday afternoon. The line stretched from the polling center down a third-story hallway, two flights of stairs and out to the front door.
Among those waiting was freshman computer science major Lalith Katta. Katta, who recently turned 18, said he was excited to cast his first-ever vote.
“I just feel like we’re at an interesting political time,” he said. “Here is where I need to take my stand and start doing my part.”
Hundreds of students had registered and cast votes at the bookstore by 1 p.m., according to Larissa Addison, a county elections department clerk.
“There’s definitely enthusiasm,” Addison said. “We have first time voters, we have people excited to register and vote at the same time.”
Nationally, the midterm election has been framed as a referendum on the the Trump administration and a chance for Democrats to take control of the House of Representatives.
But in Santa Cruz County — already Democratic stronghold — voters stood little chance of directly impacting that effort, and many said it was the local issues that weighed most heavily on their minds in the voting booth.
Soquel resident Alan Fox, 63, said he voted against Measure H, the countywide affordable housing bond, and a parcel tax measure to raise funds for the Soquel Unified School District.
“I’m very concerned about the impacts of all these bond measures,” said Fox, who has lived in the area for decades and previously similar proposals. “I think this is the first time I’ve ever said no. I finally said, ‘Enough’s enough.’”
For Felton resident Louie Johnston, 29, the question of who to send to the rural San Lorenzo Valley Water District Board rose to the top of his ballot priorities. The water district’s board is still shadowed by a conflict-of-interest case that led to a judgement against a former board member in 2016.
The issue most on the minds of voters in the city of Santa Cruz appeared to be Measure M, a citywide rent control proposal backed by progressive activists and staunchly opposed by real-estate interests.
Measure M has found support from many UC Santa Cruz students who struggle to find housing in what is, by some metrics, one of the nation’s least affordable cities. Demonstrators on both sides of the issue made their case at UCSC’s main entrance Tuesday afternoon.
“The choice to many people who are low-wage workers in this community is pay most of your income for a place to live or live out of our your car or on the street,” said Zav Hershfield, 25, a recent UCSC graduate who supports Measure M.
Standing across Bay Street, junior history major Keshav Kumar demonstrated against the measure and said support on campus may not be as high as its backers hope.
“There is certainly a vocal group of supporters on campus, but there is also a quieter group of people who don’t think that this is the correct solution,” Kumar said. “I don’t think tonight Yes on M supporters should be banking on campus to get them through.”
But pass or fail, Hershfield said Measure M supporters have driven their point home. “At the very least, what we’ve done here is raise the consciousness of the community to understand that the housing situation is not working here,” he said. “Renters are suffering desperately.”
Early election results were expected to be posted by 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. County officials cautioned that early results could change as more votes are tallied, and final results could take weeks.
State law gives election officials 30 days to certify results, but Pellerin, the county clerk, said her office is aiming to present a clearer picture of results before Thanksgiving.
Perloff, the ballot-box-dressed demonstrator, said she hopes participation in the election can serve as a moment of unity across partisan divides.
“I think it’s really important in these divisive times to make people smile and to see if people can come together in a nonpartisan way and just appreciate our rights,” she said.
This story was edited to clarify the timeline in which election results are expected to be released. A clearer picture of results is expected before Thanksgiving, not final tallies.
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