MENDOCINO CO., 10/23/26 — Voters in Laytonville, Leggett and Covelo who want to hand their ballots straight to the county before Election Day have no drop box close to home. The nearest one open 24 hours a day is in Willits.
Mendocino County has five ballot drop boxes open around the clock for the Nov. 3 election, according to the county elections office’s list. They are at city halls in Willits, Fort Bragg, Point Arena and Ukiah, and at the county administration building in Ukiah. None is north of Willits.
“They’re by mail,” Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder Katrina Bartolomie told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Oct. 20, when a supervisor asked whether Laytonville and Leggett had drop boxes. Asked whether the closest box was in Willits, she said yes.
That box, at Willits City Hall, 111 E. Commercial St., is about 23 miles by road from Laytonville, about 42 miles from Covelo and about 45 miles from Leggett.
Bartolomie said every box has to meet two conditions. “They have to be well lit, and they have to be under surveillance 24-7,” she said, and mentioned Covelo as another town without a drop box. “So that’s our thing that we need to figure out a way to do later on if we can. But those are the regulations for right now.”
She didn’t say at the meeting which regulations she meant. The California Secretary of State’s drop box regulations say boxes shall be monitored by video “if feasible,” and that existing camera systems on county, city or private buildings can count. The regulations don’t mention lighting. In picking drop-off sites, they say, elections officials must consider “concentrations of population, geographic areas, voter convenience,” along with proximity to public transportation, security and available funding.
Covelo’s one drop-off point, at Round Valley Justice Court, 76270 Grange St., is open only on Election Day. Laytonville has an Election Day polling place at the Lions Fire Hall, 44920 Willis Ave. The county’s list of polling places includes none in Leggett.
Two more drop-off sites keep weekday hours: the fairgrounds office in Boonville, 14400 Highway 128, open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the Welcome Center lobby at Mendocino College, 1000 Hensley Creek Road in Ukiah, open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The drop-off sites opened Oct. 2 and will close at 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Bartolomie also told supervisors the county has “started getting back an incredible amount of vote-by-mail ballots.” On Monday, Oct. 19, she said, the elections office’s drop box took more than 300 ballots between its 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. pickups.
The elections office, 501 Low Gap Road, Room 1020, Ukiah, is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will also open Saturday, Oct. 31, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Its number is 707-234-6819.