In the past, because LA County’s ballot system was separate from Long Beach’s municipal ballot system, voters entering a polling location typically had to check in at two separate tables with separate poll workers, sign two different registers, cast two separate ballots and submit each ballot at separate ballot boxes.
This year, election officials hope that much of the confusion will be eliminated, now that LA County is about to handle both the state primary and the Long Beach elections and operate with only one crew of poll workers in June.
Long Beach City Clerk Maria de la Luz Garcia explained the new collaboration between her department and LA County. She described how the simplified system might encourage a better voter turnout. Garcia formerly served as precinct coordinator and had to visit about 10 polling locations during the Long Beach elections. Garcia remembered the confusion that both voters and poll workers experienced when they attempted to navigate the separate ballot systems.
June 7 will mark the first time in recent memory in which the two elections will be managed by LA County, and voters will only have to check in at one table at the polling station. While they will still have to fill out two separate ballots for the separate races, voters will at least only have to submit their ballots into one solitary ballot box.
“It’s about bringing more people into the process and getting them excited about voting,” Garcia said of the change in a telephone interview.
Veteran poll worker Dennis Rader, a Long Beach resident who has worked on election days at both the City of Los Angeles and the City of Long Beach, remembers Two Vote Tuesdays in his hometown. For about three or four of the Long Beach elections, he served as an inspector at the polling stations.
“Voters would come in,” Rader said, “and they’d see the two tables, and they wouldn’t know what to do.” He said that a few just followed directions without incident, some would complain and others would question why the process had to be that way.
Garcia explained that Long Beach is in a unique position because the date of its municipal Primary Nominating Election on April 12 is only 56 days away from the June statewide primary election, and the City historically had no choice but to hold a concurrent election. The city charter had named the second Tuesday of April for the day of the Primary Nominating Election and named the traditional date of the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June for the day of its General Municipal Election, which is the same day as the state primaries.
According to a statement on the city clerk’s website, that tight timeframe between those two election dates didn’t leave enough time to print ballots to distribute to the voters in the past.
Garcia described how the City will still handle the April 12 Primary Nominating Election this year, but the pressure will be on to complete the canvass and tally of the votes in order to get that election certified as soon as possible. The City will submit candidate information for the June General Municipal Election for the County to create the sample ballots and prepare candidate information for Election Day.
The city clerk’s office will primarily take an observational role at the polling places on June 7, and the tally will take place in the Norwalk headquarters at LA County.
LA County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan said that because the city is geographically close to Norwalk, Long Beach’s tallies will likely be among the first to be counted.
“So it really just streamlines the process,” Logan said of the new system, “so that the voters can relate to one election with everything from the presidential primary contest down to their local city contests and measures, all in one transaction, if you will.”
He acknowledged that while the Long Beach city charter’s election dates require a tight turnaround, he expressed confidence that June 7 will be an easier day. Hopefully, he added, the new process “will make it seamless for the voters.”
