Morning Report: The Silent San Diegans

Many city residents have already voted. Many more will head to the polls this morning. And plenty still will decide for one reason or another not to bother.

But there’s another group that gets less attention: those who live, work and pay taxes here who would like to vote, but can’t.

In a series of profiles and portraits, Gabriel Ellison-Sowcroft has the stories of two immigrants, a refugee, a parolee and a minor who will sit this election out, not by their own choosing.

“If I speak you can hear me, but if I speak my voice is muted because I’m not a citizen,” said Rumbie Mubaiwa, a refugee from Zimbabwe who has been in San Diego since 2002.

“You have a lot of time to think and a lot of time to learn without the outside world really affecting you,” said Christopher Kennison, who has been on parole since being released from prison for two felonies in Dec. 2014. “As of right now, I’m trying to get people to vote, I register people to vote. But then I sit back and think ‘Damn, I can’t even vote.’”

• As of Monday evening, nearly half a million people in the county had already voted, according to inewsource’s running tracker of early votes. Of those, 40 percent came from Democrats and 37 percent came from Republicans with the balance coming from voters who declined to choose a party.

Election Contest: Over or Under

We’ve had a tradition here at VOSD for the last few major elections. We set the lines and readers make their best guesses on who will win the most-watched races on the ballot. This year, we’ll take the winner out for lunch with me, Scott Lewis and Sara Libby.

Here’s how it goes. Pick over or under on each of the following questions. Email your answers to scott@voiceofsandiego.org

Measure A: choose over or under: 57 percent yes

Measure B: choose over or under: 53 percent yes

Measure C: choose over or under: 48 percent yes

Measure D: choose over or under: 48 percent yes

Measure K: choose over or under: 53 percent yes.

San Diego city attorney: choose over or under: Mara Elliot, 52 percent.

San Diego County Board of Supervisors, District 3: Choose over or under: Dave Roberts, 49 percent

San Diego City Council, District 9: Choose over or under: Georgette Gomez, 50.2 percent

49th Congressional District: Choose over or under: Darrell Issa, 52 percent

Proposition 64: Choose over or under: 54 percent yes

Tiebreaker: Predict the electoral votes Hillary Clinton will receive

Border Report: Election-Watching From the South

We’re excited for a lot of the local races here – who represents District 9, who is the next city attorney – but we recognize for most people, Tuesday night will be about the presidential race.

Based on Donald Trump’s campaign, that’ll be true throughout Mexico too, as Brooke Binkowski examines in this week’s Border Report. One Mexican official is also pushing for a probe into whether Trump committed tax fraud with the shell of a resort bearing his name that was started but never finished on the coastt just south of Tijuana.

The Long-Promised Density Fight in Uptown

San Diego has been updating its community plan for Uptown – which includes Hillcrest, Bankers Hill, University Heights and Mission Hills – for years, and for years there’s been a central fight over whether those neighborhoods should make room for more density.

The plan is finally heading to City Council next week, and that’s still the main issue.

Next City takes a national look at the recurring fight facing San Diego: Can the city meet its bold climate goals without becoming a fundamentally more urban place?

In Other News

• A group that donated $110,000 to opponents of Measure B, which would allow a developer to build a 1,700 home project in rural Valley Center, will not have to disclose where that money came from before today’s election, according to a Friday court ruling. (inewsource)

• The Chargers’ spending in support of their Measure C initiative represented roughly 40 percent of all the money spent on elections in San Diego this year. (inewsource)

• I was sort of looking forward to Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson’s election-eve rally at the House of Blues, but he canceled his visit and will instead communicate with supporters over video. (NBC San Diego)

• After 22 years on Lemon Grove’s City Council and 20 as mayor, Mary Sessom is saying goodbye to politics. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

• A USA Today reporter is really, really excited that San Diego could, once and for all, say no to the NFL’s request for hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies for a football stadium.

“Hell, yes, San Diego, for doing what so many cities have failed to do — stand up to NFL,” Josh Peter writes.

• Voters could legalize marijuana across the state Tuesday. And local voters could pre-emptively impose a sales tax in San Diego, too. Two Council members — Republicans Lorie Zapf and Chris Cate — are already pushing for the city to start figuring out how and where it’ll allow recreational marijuana sellers to operate. (San Diego Union-Tribune)