Absentees will play a large role in Tuesday’s election

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Jerry Brown is so retro. His election-day schedule includes a trip to the polls, which is so very 1990s. Brown will take the traditional election-day photo-op at the polls in Oakland on Tuesday morning, according to his campaign schedule.

Brown is part of a declining number of Californians who choose to go to the polls. Absentee voting has steadily been on the rise over the last decade in the state. Among those early voters this year is Brown’s Republican rival, Meg Whitman, who has already cast her ballot via mail.

More than 3.4 million voters filled out mail-in ballots during the June primary, nearly 58% of the 5.6 million ballots cast. Absentee voting hit a peak during the state’s 2009 special election, when more than 62% of the ballots cast were mail-in ballots. You can chart the state’s mail-in-ballot statistics here.

-- Anthony York in Sacramento