Turnout steady, slow in election

Some voters see possibility for big changes; other say special election is too expensive.NEWPORT-MESA -- By midday Tuesday, voters weren’t exactly storming the polls, but poll workers around Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, and officials at the Orange County Registrar of Voters were ready just in case.

Turnout ranged from sluggish to steady at several local precincts, where voters decided on eight statewide ballot issues, four county measures and a school bond issue.

At Lighthouse Coastal Community Church in Costa Mesa, things were steadily busy all morning, with nearly 300 people casting ballots by about 12:30 p.m., said poll worker Tammy Meatzie.

In Newport Beach, however, only 50 people had cast ballots at Temple Bat Yahm by about 2 p.m. It wasn’t a big surprise to poll worker Janet Dryden, who said 25% of the precinct’s voters are absentee.

Dryden said it was the same when she stopped by Liberty Baptist Church, another polling place close to the temple.

“They were doing about the same thing we were -- not a whole lot,” she said.

The fluctuating turnout could be the result of voters’ apparent ambivalence about the statewide initiatives.

Voters seemed to be all over the map as to the election’s importance. Some said they think it’s an opportunity for big changes in government -- one voter entering the polls said he “came to strike a blow for liberty” -- but others thought the election squandered taxpayer money.

“It was a wasteful election. Not one of these initiatives couldn’t have waited until the next election,” said Jeff Roach, a 40-year-old architect who was voting at the Lighthouse church.

But Linda Olson, a 58-year-old private school teacher in Costa Mesa, disagreed. Like kids who forget over the summer what they learned last school year, Olson said, voters need something to keep them engaged in what their government is doing.

“Unless we have these initiatives put before us, we forget,” she said.

A few came out specifically because of Proposition 73, which would require parental notification when minors seek abortions.

“I think it’s important that parents know what their kids are up to,” Meatzie said. “They have to get permission to get an aspirin at school. Get an abortion without my permission? Wait a minute!”

The issue also drew the opposition, which included Lauren Woodward, a 23-year-old Costa Mesa student and hairdresser.

“I just feel like they’re trying to take more and more rights away from women,” she said of the parental notification proposal.

Earlier in the day, the Orange County Registrar of Voters was practically a ghost town, though election workers were gearing up for the rush at the end of the day.

The registrar on Tuesday debuted a “control tower” set-up, a conference room filled with computers and phones used to handle any problems at polling places and track voting results from the polls to the warehouse where they’re counted.

A satellite tracking system monitors three election teams in vans, which can be deployed to a polling place struck by a shortage of paper ballots or a malfunctioning electronic voting machine.

The new capabilities at the registrar’s office also allow officials to get more information out to the public, registrar’s spokesman Brett Rowley said.

The registrar’s website now lists the progress of voting results as they move from the county’s 769 polling places to 23 collection centers to the registrar’s office, where they’ll be tallied. Web cameras even show the warehouse where trucks full of voting equipment deliver the ballots.

“When we’re in between reports, they want to know what’s going on, so we’re trying to educate voters,” Rowley said.

UNOFFICIAL RESULTS

AT 11:30 P.M.

MEASURE F

Newport-Mesa school bond

Yes 55.2%

No 44.8%

Needs 55% to win

County Initiatives

MEASURE B

Yes 34.3%

No 65.7%

MEASURE C

Yes 27.5%

No 72.5%

MEASURE D

Yes 26.8%

No 73.2%

MEASURE E

Yes 31.3%

No 68.7%20051109ipo31gknWENDI KAMINSKI / DAILY PILOT(LA)Brett Rowley, O.C. Registrar of Voters director of communications, explains new technology employed in Tuesday’s election.