Orange County registrar outlines changing voting patterns as election approaches

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (KABC) -- The way Orange County votes is changing and the OC Registrar of Voters broke it down in a briefing this week.

OC Registrar of Voters Bob Page says of the county's just more than 1.8 million registered voters, the highest number are Democrats, making up just more than 37% of registered voters.

"Republican Party would be second with just over 33% of our registered voters. Those who have not identified a party preference is about 24%," Page said.

Six percent of registered voters in OC requested election materials in one of these four languages: Korean, Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese. Of those, 40% requested materials in Vietnamese.

This comes as no surprise to Julie Vo, policy director of the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance.

"The Vietnamese population is very large in Orange County. Orange County is actually home to the largest Vietnamese diaspora, which is the community of Vietnamese living outside of Vietnam," Vo said.

Though historically this group has voted more conservatively, Vo said future generations are focusing on different issues.

"As participants now in the democratic process, in the United States, recognize that outside of homeland politics there are issues of importance that directly impact our Vietnamese community, such as education, healthcare, mental health, housing and environmental justice," Vo said.

"So, all of those issues are surfacing as we're conversing and talking to young people and those are the things that are on their mind as they're entering the polls."

As for ensuring the integrity of the election, Page said there are measures in place.

"All the equipment that we use in an election - we use security seals on them that we can use in an audit to make sure that we're maintaining chain of custody for that," Page said.

This week, the Orange County Registrar of Voters office is releasing a new toolkit with information and resources for voters in Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean and Spanish.