After weeks of robo-calls, mounds of flyers filling mailboxes and campaign signs cluttering up front yards throughout Los Angeles County, the day has finally arrived:
It’s election day.
So if you haven’t voted yet — now is the time.
Related: Haven’t voted yet? Here’s what to know as primary election day draws near
And it appears plenty of folks haven’t voted yet. The Los Angeles County registrar’s office had received 519,790 vote-by-mail ballots through Sunday, March 3, according to the California Secretary of State’s office; 39,396 people had cast ballots at the county’s regional vote centers.
With about 5.7 million registered voters in LA County, that comes out to a turnout of nearly 10% through Sunday. Of the approximately 6.5 million eligible voters, about 8.6% had cast ballots through Sunday.
That means a lot of ballots would have to come in during the final two days of the election — or during the seven-day window for vote-by-mail ballots to arrive after Tuesday, March 5 — to match recent voter turnout trends.
Voter turnout is traditionally lower for a primary than a general election, though turnout is also higher for both during presidential years like this one. During the 2022 midterms, for example, countywide turnout for the primary and general elections were 28.48% and 43.65%, respectively, according to the registrar’s office. By contrast, turnout for the 2020 primary was 38.5% — and 75.98% of eligible voters cast ballots during that year’s general election.
In 2016, LA County saw 42.13% of eligible voters cast ballots during the presidential primary and 69.45% cast ballots that November.
So to reach the same turnout of eligible voters the county had during the 2020 presidential primary, about 1.9 million additional ballots needed to be received, as of Sunday.
It’s unclear whether that will happen.
But if you’re one of the last-minute voters scrambling to figure out which candidates, propositions and measures to…
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