Long Beach residents who vote by mail may have already realized that an extra envelope has arrived to capture their choices for the upcoming June 3 election, which features municipal as well as county and state contests.
All others will discover when they hit the polls in a few weeks that instead of one ballot containing a comprehensive listing of all positions up for grabs this cycle, on June 3 there will be two separate ones, in something the Long Beach City Clerk’s Office is calling “2 Vote Tuesday.”
One ballot will be for the City of Long Beach’s general election–on which voters will choose between those candidates who made the run-off for mayor, city attorney and 1st and 5th council districts–and the other will feature state and county candidates and issues including sheriff, state assembly, governor and two state measures.
This two-ballot election is the result of not only differing voting systems between the City and the County and State, but also the short duration of time between Long Beach’s primary April 8 and its general election June 3. Because of the two dates’ proximity, there was not enough time for the City of Long Beach to add the run-off candidates to the County of Los Angeles’ ballot, resulting in two separate but no less important ballots.
On June 3, “2 Vote Tuesday” means that voters will have to visit two sign-in tables at the same polling place and will use different voting systems to cast their ballots.
“The goal is to make sure voters in Long Beach know that they need to sign-in twice and cast two ballots,” said Long Beach City Clerk Larry Herrera. “It’s a minor inconvenience brought on by the tight election schedules, but we want to ensure that everyone’s voice is heard.”
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