With this year’s extremely close presidential race, many people may feel extra nervous on Election Day, but Richmond voters said they have faith in the democratic process and were excited to participate.
As Ruth Thomas made her way to the polling center at Richmond Memorial Auditorium early Tuesday morning, holding tight to the arm of a relative, she said she wanted to vote in person.
“We want to vote here, everybody should vote,” she said.
Her relative, Rayna R,. said it was important to her to vote in this election as a Black woman.
“Everybody hasn’t always been able to vote, so now that everybody does have the right, we ought to exercise them,” she said, gesturing to the elderly Thomas.
“There was a time when she couldn’t vote. And so now that there’s somebody who looks like us on the ballot, it’s life changing,” Rayna R. added, referring to presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Richmond poll workers said they expect a high turnout on Tuesday even with a nationwide record-breaking number of voters casting their ballots early by mail.
At the Providence Baptist Church polling place in Richmond’s Coronado neighborhood, where races include a Richmond City Council seat, poll worker Marie Moseley said compared to her experience working in the 2022 election she thinks there are more people headed to voting centers across Contra Costa County. She said she mailed in her ballot, and checked to ensure that it was received. (Voters can check the status of their ballot and track it with the California Secretary of State.)
“We already had at least three or four people lining up before we opened, more than normal,” Moseley said. “When that happens, I know it’s going to be a busy day. These people actually came in and voted, they didn’t have their ballots. People are really into voting now. It’s going to definitely be busy after work.”
However, some poll workers said they think many people took advantage of the chance to vote at the Richmond Public Library, open for early voting on Friday, Saturday and Monday.
Voters told Richmondside ahead of Election Day that they found the early voting exciting. They have numerous local issues to vote on: measures to change how the city runs elections and races for city council and the county and West Contra Costa Unified School District school boards. (Visit our results page for live updates on these races plus state and presidential contests, starting around 8 p.m. after the polls close.)
Richmond election results
Starting at 8 p.m., after the polls close, you can find a live feed of local, state and presidential election results here.
Richmond voter Michael Durham was in line to vote early Saturday at the library, saying that he wants to see people in office who can improve city facilities such as streets and lights, and address street crime and dumping.
“I’m at the verge of retiring, and I would like to say that I’m interested in staying in Richmond. But unless something happens to make new tax breaks for the middle class, living in California on a retirement salary is almost impossible,” Durham said.
He added that he’s ready to vote Kamala Harris into office as president.
“We already know what Donald Trump is about, because he was there for four years,” Durham said. “He didn’t do much to help us, the middle class. Kamala has verbalized that she will look out for the middle class and won’t give big businesses the tax breaks they don’t need. People come up with reasons they don’t want to vote for Kamala, but they don’t make sense. They’re based on lies from the other side. (With) Trump, everything that comes out of his mouth needs to be fact-checked.”
Of voting ahead of Election Day, Durham added: “I wanted to get it out of the way. It was very easy, there was no crowd.”
Richmond resident Luis Fierro said over the weekend that he was happy to vote for Harris. He said that as a 65-year-old man, he hopes to help the United States catch up to other countries that have elected women to the highest office, such as Mexico.
“Some other countries have women presidents, and there’s still people out there that abuse women and don’t believe women are at a level now to be respected,” Fierro said. “In Mexico we had an election a few months ago which was huge for Mexican people because of the machismo and (patriarchal) culture there. For a country like this one having a woman president, that’s going to be the main idea to wake up, for these guys. “This country has a lot of potential, and this (election) is going to send the message to wake up and understand that women are on another level now.”
