Election Day technically doesn’t arrive until Tuesday, but voting is already well underway, and casting a ballot in person became a lot easier today, when hundreds of additional vote centers opened across Los Angeles County.
More than 100 vote centers opened in Los Angeles County last week, but about 650 more opened Friday. Vote center locations include major event venues, including the Long Beach Convention Center, Cal State Long Beach, Staples Center, SoFi Stadium, the Forum, Dodger Stadium and Banc of California Stadium.
See a full, interactive map, here. For a run-down on the ballot in Long Beach, click here.
Any registered voter in the county can cast a ballot at any vote center, regardless of location and the voter’s home address.
Residents can either use the voting machines at the center or drop off the mail-in ballots that were sent to every registered voter.
The centers will be open every day through the Tuesday election.
Long Beach Voter Guide: Debate roundups, local measures and vote center locations
The vote center concept replaces the traditional precinct system, which required voters to cast ballots at designated locations on Election Day. Election officials hope the availability of vote centers will encourage people to cast their ballots early, reducing the possibility of long lines at polling places on election night.
The early voting message appears to be having an impact. According to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s Office, more than 2.1 million vote-by-mail ballots had already been received as of Thursday night, roughly five times the number that were returned by this point in 2016’s presidential election.
More than half of those ballots have been collected from drop boxes that are located across the county, according to the clerk’s office. Another 149,000 votes had already been cast at early voting centers in Los Angeles County as of Thursday night.
In Long Beach, 86,246 (nearly one-third) of the 293,918 ballots issued to local voters had already been cast as of Wednesday, according to the City Clerk.
Although election officials are urging people to vote early, people who wait til the last minute can still get their ballots in. New rules this year allow the counting of any mail-in ballot that is postmarked by Tuesday and received as late as Nov. 20.
Officials have 30 days after the election to tally all ballots and certify the results.