San Francisco on pace for record turnout with early voting underway

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Early voting has been underway in much of the country. In San Francisco, they had the highest levels this weekend since early voting began decades ago.

One way San Franciscans casted their ballots on Monday won Monday was to venture down into the basement of City Hall to the voting center. More than 2,000 people voted by late Monday afternoon and over 3,500 over the weekend - a record for early voting. While the lines were long today, the process was seemed smooth with 150 voting booths and extra staff.

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"It really wasn't that bad. It was five minutes in the line here, then a couple minutes there," said one early voter.

With such a surge of early voters, the election's director believes the city's well on its way to a block buster turnout this year.

"I think we'll have the second highest number of people voting in the city's history in this election, November 2008 was the highest," said John Arntz, the San Francisco Elections Directors.

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That year, the city saw an 81 percent voter turnout ushering in the Barack Obama presidency.

There are 513,000 registered voters in San Francisco, nearly half vote by mail.

Many others like to get that sticker that comes with showing up in person. Latashia Holmes was especially pleased to cast her ballot.

"I'm gonna be real honest with you. I wasn't able to vote for years because I was a convicted felon. But once you're off parole and change your life around, you're able to come out and support your country," shared Holmes.

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For the early voters, the deed is done. Now it's up to the rest of the nation.

"It'll be done tomorrow. It'll either be a bottle of champagne or a bowl of Xanax," joked Lucas Ringhofer, San Francisco voter.

San Francisco's polling places are open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

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