L.A. County to open 500 more voting centers for midterm election
By Scott Shuchart
1 June 2016
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors recently approved $250 million of its budget for the elections period—the third largest allocation of money in the county’s history. The measure will fund the construction and opening of six new polling places in the county and the purchase of one new automated voting machine, as well as the hiring of 250 employees for the County’s Election Division, to be deployed for the upcoming mid-term elections. The budget represents the largest expenditure by the county in the election year since the introduction of Proposition 60, which was approved by a majority of Los Angeles County voters and created the Office of Elections.
The funding includes $70,000 for the purchase of new equipment at the Voter Registration District No. 2 in South Gate, $60,000 for the purchase of new equipment at Voter Registration District No. 8 in the Arts District in Downtown and $30,000 for the purchase of new equipment at Voter Registration District No. 3 in Wilmington. The latter three districts are home to hundreds of thousands of voters in the city of Wilmington.
In his public speech outlining the measure, Supervisor Hilda Solis announced that the Board would continue expanding the voter registration sites in Los Angeles County. “At the last election, we saw the results of a $600 million renovation of three locations over a five year period,” she said, adding that “we’ve expanded the sites to six and we plan to continue to expand them.”
A recent report prepared by the Election Division stated that the county had a “low voter turn out rate in the last election cycle,” and recommended that “there be a greater focus on increasing voter registration numbers.” While the Voter Registration Division at County Elections was responsible for the opening of the new voter registration sites in 2015, the new funding would be funneled into the Election Division to open seven new sites, expand two current sites and upgrade two others—an estimated $1.8 million increase.
The majority of the funding will go toward the addition of new polling sites to accommodate an expected ten million voters in the county over the mid-term period. “This year’s election is a high priority for Election Division as we work to ensure that every Los Angeles County voter has a chance to vote,” Supervisor
