Tuesday's Special Election Marked by Low Voter Turnout

Voters appeared to be turning out in small numbers Tuesday for the special election to fill a vacant seat in the state Senate's 28th District with only dozens of ballots cast at some polling stations late in the afternoon.

The equipment room of Fire Station 62 on Venice Blvd. was empty at 3:15 pm. Volunteers told Patch of the 1,966 people registered to vote at the station, only 50 had trickled in throughout the day. At 4 pm the polling station was still empty. One volunteer said he expected people to start showing up after 5 p.m. their way home from work.

The story wasn't very different at Coeur D'Alene Avenue Elementary School in Venice at 3:40 p.m. where seven poll workers outnumbered a lone voter. Sixty-two ballots had been cast all day, said Frank Nickels, a poll worker at the elementary school. At another polling place in Venice, only 18 votes had been cast by 2:30 p.m. from a precinct with more than 2,000 voters.

"It's been light," said Jackie Earnhart, a poll worker at Redondo Beach's Fire Station One. When the polls opened at 7 a.m., there were several voters, Earnhart said, but not many since that time. She expected a bump at lunchtime and again after work.

The 28th District election is being held to replace the late state Sen. Jenny Oropeza, who was posthumously re-elected in November. Oropeza, a Democrat, died Oct. 20 from complications of an abdominal blood clot, but was still re-elected. The state Senate's 28th District includes Marina del Rey, Venice, Mar Vista, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and other areas.

In Manhattan Beach, Robin and Lloyd Lehrer cast their ballots for presumptive front-runner Ted Lieu, who was termed out as assemblyman last year.

“He’s already done an incredible job," Robin Lehrer said.

James Shankle of Manhattan Beach also lent his support to Lieu.

“He’s kind of a local guy, of course, Bob Valentine is local, too," Shankle said. "I don’t like what the Republicans do in Sacramento. All they do is say no without coming up with any ideas of their own. They’ve paralyzed our government. Not that I think the Democrats could do the same thing, but it just seems like we aren’t going anywhere up there. Maybe he’ll be as effective in the Senate as he was in the other house.”

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Polling locations and sample ballots can be found at www.lavote.net/locator.

For more on Tuesday's election, check out Patch's .

Patch editors Jared Morgan, Samantha Page and Ed Pilolla contributed to this report.