At 7 p.m., an hour before the polls closed, a steady stream of
student voters continued to flow in and out of the polling station
in Hedrick Hall, possibly indicating a higher student turnout than
some had thought.
Young citizens are traditionally less likely to vote than other
age groups, and special elections generally have lower turnout
rates than regularly scheduled elections. Still, about 950 people
voted at Hedrick Hall on Tuesday.
Most of those voters were UCLA students, poll workers said.
Hedrick Hall was the only on-campus voting location.
Statewide, voter turnout was at 27 percent at 4 p.m. on Tuesday
afternoon, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar’s
Office. Secretary of State Bruce McPherson predicted last week that
the voter turnout rate could reach 42 percent, 6 percent more than
the election in 1993, the last year a California special election
was held without a candidate race.
The expected turnout rate is up from 36 percent turnout in
1993.
Mark Petracca, associate professor of political science and
chairman of the political science department at UC Irvine, said the
large amount of money spent on advertising and campaigning and the
high number of ballot measures could contribute to a relatively
high turnout for this year’s special election.
“Lots of money was spent to mobilize people. There were
lots of initatives on the ballot so that there are enough
constituent groups involved to pull people out to vote on both
sides. There was a fair amount of publicicty with TV
advertising,” Petracca said.
But some people may have stayed away from the polls because they
felt the special election was a bad idea, considering
California’s financial situation, Petracca said.
“For this election, turnout depends on (whether those who
oppose the special election) will stay home or if they will go out
and vote “˜no’ because they’re pissed off,”
he added.
Many UC students seemed to be feel strongly enough about the
election to vote. Graduate student and four-time poll worker
Michelle Gallagher said the turnout at Hedrick was much higher than
she had expected.
“I certainly didn’t expect such a large turnout.
Only about 40 people showed up for the mayoral election. … This
is a much bigger turnout. Not quite as big as the presidential
election, but it’s getting there,” Gallapher said.
Bruin Democrats President Derek Lowrey said he is more happy
than surprised by the high student turnout.
“I attribute it to all the work student groups put in
promoting awareness and advertising the special election on campus.
A lot of clubs had been going out and educating students about the
propositions,” Lowrey said.
He added that more students vote when they feel like the ballot
measures will affect them.
“You can’t force someone to care,” he
said.
First-year undeclared student Analee Villalpando felt strongly
enough about the propositions to vote for the first time on Tuesday
at Hedrick.
“I feel like I need to vote because I will be directly
affected by the results. Especially (Proposition 76). I don’t
want the governor to cut spending on education. I for sure
don’t want tuition to go up,” Villalpando said.
Turnout is still expected to be significantly lower than
presidential elections, reflecting the trend of lower turnout rates
for special elections than regularly scheduled elections.
Petracca said low turnout for special elections could be due to
the fact that they usually do not have as much star pull as general
elections, which have candidate races, and some people may just be
tired of the frequency of elections.
Petracca added that voter turnout has been declining in recent
years despite attempts to encourage people to go to the polls.
“Absentee ballots have made it really easy to vote at
home. The state has also reduced the period in which people have to
be registered to vote. And yet despite those these two things,
turnout still isn’t going up,” Petracca said.
Though the number of absentee voters has increased drastically,
the total number of voters has not increased. The voters
contributing to the higher percentage of absentee voters are the
same people who used to vote at the polls, he said.