Orange County offers drive-through democracy

Today is the last day to register for the Nov. 4 election, and the Orange County Registrar of Voters is providing the ultimate convenience for car-obsessed Southern Californians: drive-through democracy.

For one day only, Orange County voters can register to vote or cast their ballots without unbuckling their seat belts at eight electronic booths set up in a Santa Ana parking lot.

The drive-through voting and registration will be available from 5 p.m. until midnight tonight outside the registrar's offices at 1300 S. Grand Ave., Building C, on the corner of Grand and McFadden avenues.

Orange County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley says that as far as he knows, the setup is the first of its kind in the state.

The booths, the same eSlate devices used throughout the county, are designed for disabled voters, making them shorter than typical booths -- the perfect height for drivers' car windows. County election officials have used the mobile devices before to allow disabled voters to cast ballots from their cars.

For those registering to vote, election officials will hand the paperwork through car windows, or people can fill out the forms at a well-lighted table outside.

Kelley expressed surprise at the number of calls his office has received about early voting and the drive-through ballot box. Election officials registered 1,200 voters on the last day of registration for the February primary races; Kelley guesses that today's turnout could triple that.

"I didn't think it would catch on," Kelley said. "It seems to have hit a chord with people . . . they like the convenience factor."

If the drive-through becomes backed up, people will be funneled to another lane, where they can park and register or vote in a mobile trailer, also open until midnight. People cannot register and vote on the same day; today's registrants will take about 48 hours to be processed.

Kelley says interest in the Nov. 4 election seems to be running unusually high. Early voting kicked off Sunday in Orange County; at John Wayne Airport, the first early-voting site to open, there were seven people lined up to vote at 7 a.m., Kelley said.

More than 1,000 people voted Sunday at the county's 10 early-voting sites. Those locations can be found at ocvote.com/early. Kelley added that the deadline for vote-by-mail applications, which have doubled since the last presidential election, is Oct. 28.

Although culturally drive-through voting makes sense in the land of In-N-Out Burger, the real intention, Kelley said, is to make sure people know today is their last chance to register in time for election day.

People can also register the old-fashioned way -- outside their cars -- in the building's lobby from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Rosenblatt is a Times staff writer.

susannah.rosenblatt@latimes.com