Thursday, December 03, 2009

Yorba Linda turnouts low for special elections

Schedule a special election in this city and a sizeable majority of Yorba Lindans won’t bother to cast ballots—either at a voting precinct or by mail from the comfort of home.

Nearly four out of five of eligible Yorba Linda voters ignored the Nov. 17 election to replace former state Assemblyman Mike Duvall, who resigned his seat Sept. 9 after a self-described incident of “inappropriate storytelling” caught by an open microphone.

That’s about the same number who overlooked the special election to choose Duvall’s City Council successor in June 2007. The two-time mayor had resigned his six-year council post in December 2006, when he assumed his Assembly seat in Sacramento.

And more than three out of five city voters didn’t cast ballots this past May in the statewide special election, in which voters defeated five out of six propositions.

By contrast, fewer than one out of five Yorba Lindans disregarded the November 2008 Presidential election, although not all of the 35,085 voters reached the end of the ballot listing the council, school trustee and water district director races.

The turnout for the special Nov. 17 primary to select party candidates for Duvall’s old job totaled just 22.3 percent in Yorba Linda, but that edged the13.3 to 20.6 percent turnout in the 72nd district’s other cities: Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, La Habra, Orange and Placentia.

Of the 4,926 voters who marked ballots, 1,116 were cast at precincts and 3,810 were mailed. The 72nd includes 22,101 westside Yorba Linda voters, half of the city’s total.

The citywide turnout for the special 2007 council election, won by Hank Wedaa for an eighth term, was 8,362 of 40,957 registered voters (20.4 percent), and the vote in the special statewide May election was 15,213 of 42,977 registered voters (35.4 percent).

In the 2007 election, voters cast 2,399 precinct ballots and 5,963 mail-in ballots. The 2008 Presidential ballot, cast by 81.6 percent of Yorba Linda’s 43,010 eligible voters, included 19,038 precinct, 284 early voting and 16,047 mail-in ballots.

Turnout in the Country Club and Fairlynn county islands is always a bit stronger. Of 1,113 voters, 285 (25.6 percent) cast ballots in the Nov. 17 contest, all but 75 by mail.

The next special election is the Jan. 12 runoff pitting Republican winner Chris Norby against Democrat John MacMurray and the Green Party’s Jane Rands.