Today is election day – a.k.a. the final day you can vote in this year’s elections. If you haven’t already done so, you can still vote in person until 8 p.m. at any of our LA County Vote Centers. You can also still mail your ballot at a U.S. Post Office (it must be postmarked today), or drop off your paper ballot at a Vote Center, or at any of the ballot drop boxes outside our four local branch libraries (Wilshire, Memorial, John C. Fremont, and Fairfax) which will also be open until 8 p.m. (You can also use any other drop box location in LA County.) And to make it all even easier, Metro is offering free fares on all buses, trains, bikes and Micro vehicles today…with ballot drop boxes available at many of its busiest train stations .
Also, just so you know, not being registered to vote is no longer a reason not to vote on election day. In other words, yes, if you’re not yet registered, but are eligible to vote, you can still register at a Vote Center and then vote, all at the same time. (Same-day registrants will receive “conditional registration,” with ballots counted after their voter registration information is verified.) And if you’re not sure whether or not you’re registered, you can check your status here.
So that takes care of registration and voting…but now what happens after you’ve voted, whether early or today?
First, whether you voted by mail, drop box, or at a vote center, you should receive a confirmation email or text verifying that your ballot was received and will be counted. If, for some reason, you have not received a confirmation note, you can also check the status of your ballot here: https://california.ballottrax.net/voter/
And then the exciting part is watching the election returns come in. Of course, every major media outlet will be pretty much wall-to-wall election coverage after the polls close (with a lot more speculative coverage earlier in the day, too). But if you want to keep an eye on official returns as they’re recorded, visit the LA County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s election results site at https://results.lavote.gov/#year=2022&election=4300 Also, finally, it’s worth noting that some races will likely not be decided tonight, especially those that are at all close, because so many people vote by mail these days that even properly-postmarked ballots will still be rolling in for several days, so totals will keep growing and shifting for a while during that process. Which means you should definitely keep checking the Registrar-Recorder site tomorrow and beyond for updates as it all plays out.
We have no idea yet what the day will bring…but we’re sure this one is going to be pretty interesting on many fronts. So please vote if you haven’t yet done so…and then grab some popcorn, sit back, and see what happens.
