Los Angeles Mayoral Election Turnout is Below 20% of Registered Voters

Los Angeles elected a new mayor, and members of the city council, on March 5. This Los Angeles Times story says even after all the ballots are counted, turnout will be under 20% of the registered voters. Los Angeles, like all cities in California, uses non-partisan elections.

The results, as of the morning of March 7, are: Eric Garcetti 93,978; Wendy Greuel 83,308; Kevin James 46,684; Jan Perry 45,480; Emanuel Pleitez 11,716; Norton Sandler 1,598; Addie Miller 1,401; Yehuda Draiman 1,174. No one got as much as 50%, so there will be a run-off on May 21.

Norton Sandler was the Socialist Workers Party candidate. His percentage, .56%, is not as high as the percentage received by the Socialist Workers nominee in the 2009 Mayoral election. In the 2009 election, James Harris received .90%.


Comments

Los Angeles Mayoral Election Turnout is Below 20% of Registered Voters — No Comments

  1. So would the low number imply that voters are more likely to vote for a party rather then for people (candidates) they may not know.

  2. Yes. Also parties mobilize get-out-the-vote drives.

    Political science research has shown that party label on the ballot is the chief determinant of voter behavior.

  3. Los Angeles has horrible civic participation. The presence of Hollywood may be a distraction, and it has a large immigrant population who may not be focused on local politics.

    Permanent vote-by-mail voters in Los Angeles County are 30% (likely even worse in the city). The next lowest counties (Imperial, Ventura, San Bernadino) are just below 50%. So voters are even less likely to be aware of a local election.

    Over 1/4 of the adult population is non-citizen, and close to half are non-native. Naturalized citizens may be more inclined to vote in presidential elections, than other election. Most people don’t solely speak English at home, and the non-English media may pay more attention to international politics than local politics.

    Los Angeles sprawls. If you leave San Francisco in any of 3 directions, you get eaten by a shark. If you leave Los Angeles it is just more of the same, so there is lack of identification with the city.

    Participation by Los Angeles County voters fluctuates more between the presidential election and the gubernatorial election than the rest of the state. There was a higher surge in registration during in 2012 than elsewhere in the State.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.