Two weeks out from the Nov. 3 general election, tens of thousands of Long Beach residents have already voted by mail, with their ballots now in the hands of Los Angeles County elections officials.

Ballot return data from Political Data Inc., a statewide provider of voter information and political campaign management software, shows that as of Saturday, 33,747 ballots from Long Beach voters had already been received by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.

That’s about 12% of the total ballots citywide. The Long Beach ballot return rate is slightly better than the Los Angeles County-wide return rate of 11% and slightly behind California’s overall statewide return rate of 14% through Saturday.

Statewide, over three million ballots have already been returned to local election offices, with nearly 620,000 returned so far in Los Angeles County.

Locally, races in the Long Beach area have varying rates of ballot returns, so far:

  • 13% ballot return in District 2 (parts of Downtown, Alamitos Beach)
  • 9% ballot return in District 6 (Central Long Beach)
  • 10% ballot return in the District 8 (parts of North Long Beach, Bixby Knolls)
  • 9% ballot return for Long Beach Unified School Board – District 2 (West and Central Long Beach)
  • 15% for Long Beach City College – Area 4 Trustee (southeast Long Beach, Signal Hill, Catalina Island)

In neighboring Signal Hill, where three incumbents councilmembers are running to retain their seats, along with one challenger for city council, 15% of voters have already returned their ballots in the city.

Across Long Beach, overall returns so far from registered Democrats are outpacing returns from both Republican voters and Independents: 15% of local Democrats have already returned their ballots, compared to 9% of Independents and 11% of local Republicans. Election officials mailed 144,141 ballots to Democrats in Long Beach, 82,574 to Independents, and 46,555 to registered Republicans.

Statewide, the percentage of Democratic returns is even higher than Long Beach, with 17% of Democratic ballots already returned, compared to 11% Independent and 12% Republican.

In addition to regular mail, there are 19 official ballot boxes located within the city of Long Beach where voters can return their vote-by-mail ballots, no postage necessary.

Several in-person vote centers locations will also open across the city on Oct. 24, with even more vote centers opening on Oct. 30.