Early voting turnout in LA County shatters previous first-day numbers


RICH PEDRONCELLI-ASSOCIATED PRESS File photo

By David Montero, LA Daily News
POSTED: 05/09/16, 7:39 PM PDT | UPDATED: 4 DAYS AGO
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The first day of early voting in this year’s presidential primary at the Los Angeles County Registrar’s office obliterated the total number of ballots cast at the start of the California primary four years ago.

A total of 57 people went to the Registrar’s Office to vote Monday -- almost five times the number in 2012. Yes, it was a relative tsunami of civic engagement compared to the Mitt Romney-Barack Obama presidential primary that saw 12 people cast ballots on the first day of early voting.

•RELATED STORY: Want to vote now? Here’s the rundown on early voting in Southern California

But there are still close to 1.65 million folks eligible to vote-by-mail in the county -- and 4.8 million registered overall who can be courted between now and June 7 by candidates seeking their votes.

That means campaigning in California will continue, and vote-by-mail participants, particularly those who wait until the last minute, still have plenty of time to hear from the candidates and make their decisions. You can even have your ballot post-marked on June 7 and, as long as the Registrar gets it within three days of election day, your vote will count just as much as those eager voters who showed up at the registrar’s Norwalk headquarters Monday.

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Los Angeles County has sought to improve conveniences for early voters and to increase its 34.5 percent participation rate. Compared to the surrounding counties of Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside, it lags in vote-by-mail numbers.

But the registrar is planning to have 11 kiosks scattered throughout the county to help make it more convenient for early voters to get engaged.

The county began mailing out sample ballots with vote-by-mail applications on April 28 and will continue to do so through May 17.

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