You likely won’t find any lines if you’re voting this morning in Long Beach.
Only about seven people had filtered into the voting center at Ernest McBride Park across from Poly High as of 8:30 this morning, according to lead poll worker, Justina Taing. She said only 27 people showed up yesterday.
A map from the Registrar-Recorder showed voting centers across the county had little to no wait times early Tuesday.
Of course, every registered voter received a mail-in ballot this cycle, so in-person voting might stay slow, but overall turnout is also expected to be dismal in this primary election.
Only 8% of ballots in Long Beach had been returned as of last week. And experts said they expected only between 20% and 30% of voters to ultimately weigh in. That’s down from the 2020 March primary election, where 40.1% of voters cast ballots, and in the general election when a historic 74.8% of voters showed up or mailed in their ballots.
The low turnout means higher propensity voters—who tend to be older, Whiter and wealthier—will likely wield more influence.
“The people who are going to be deciding these elections are not going to look like most of the people walking around on the streets,” Paul Mitchell, the vice president of a nonpartisan political data firm called Political Data Intelligence, told the Post last week. “The people who shop at Gelson’s are going to be electing people who represent the people who shop at Ralphs.”