The Brief

Do you vote in every race? If so, gold star for doing your civic duty to a tee.

But a lot of people don’t. While California election officials are still working their way through the remaining ballots, current numbers illustrate that non-voting trend. Here’s a look at how “undervoting” shaped this election cycle.

What is undervoting?

If you look closely at some ballot counts, you may notice some races have more total votes than others. It’s called undervoting, which is when a person — intentionally or not — skips a race on their ballot.

Undervoting happens in every contest. There can be obscure candidates you don’t recognize, so you don’t vote for either one. Maybe you ran out of time.

In any case, undervoting is normal and common. But it can be hard to spot where it affects races. It’s usually easier to notice in countywide or statewide contests because all voters in that given area have at least two races to decide.

This year, if you crack open a calculator, you can see it in our two senate races and the 10 propositions. (Don’t worry, I crunched the numbers for you.)

What the contests show

Again, this happens in every contest. But here, we’ll look at two prime examples. So far, around 600,000 voters sat out on at least one statewide proposition.

At one point in the count last week, Prop. 34, which is about drug revenues spending rules, was the least voted-on measure with 13.2 million total votes between “yes” and “no.” And Prop. 32, the measure to raise the state minimum wage, was the most voted-on with nearly 13.8 million. Counts are still ongoing, so these numbers have already changed and will continue to do so until it's all over. And here's where they stand now:

We also had two senate races this cycle.

One was to elect a senator to serve out the remainder of late Sen. Diane Feinstein’s term that expires in January, and the other is for the full term after that.

Both races were between Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey.

While Schiff ultimately won, both candidates have different margins between the races and received more votes for the full term than the short one. So far, it appears around 260,000 more people voted in the full contest than the short one.

Whitney Quesenbery, executive director of the Center for Civic Design, aims to make elections easier for voters by solving design problems in areas like ballots. They were on the L.A. County registrar’s technical advisory committee when a new voting system was developed a few years ago.

Quesenbery said the senate race is a particularly confusing civics problem.

“I would love to say that this is like people who really know their civics and they thought about it and they decided they didn't care that much about the short contest and they cared a lot about the long contest, but I don’t know,” they said.

Why do people undervote?

Undervoting can be tough to study because ballot-level data isn’t readily accessible.

Things like race placement, page breaks, and personal choice can all influence why a voter stays out of a race. But it can be hard to tell because researchers aren’t in the booth or with voters as they fill in their mail-in ballot to know for sure.

“The problem with undervotes is we simply don’t know whether someone is trying to send a message or whether the ballot is trying to send a message,” Quesenbery said.

While Quesenbery said L.A. County has well-designed ballots, poor ballot design in general has caused voters to overlook races. Text description of the race can also confuse readers. It could even be ballot fatigue — where voters just get tired of filling in bubbles — that makes someone not fill in an option.

“People can also undervote as a protest,” they said. “There are people who might skip a contest because they simply don’t know the candidates or they don’t have an opinion on the ballot question.”

California also has a top-two primary system where the two candidates with the highest votes make it through regardless of party. That can contribute to undervoting because if both candidates are, for example, Democrats, a Republican voter may choose to sit that election out. Research from Indiana University found undervoting was nearly 20 percentage points higher for voters who didn’t have a preferred party candidate in a given race.

What happens if I undervoted?

The upshot here is even if you’ve undervoted, the things you do vote on still count.

“Undervotes don't disqualify your ballot,” Quesenbery said. “It’s just you’ve skipped an opportunity to say something.”

So don’t worry if you skipped a race this past election. But keep in mind, some contests can get decided by a very small number of votes. Take this as your reminder that every 👏 vote 👏 counts👏!

On a small, formerly vacant, county-owned lot on Lincoln Avenue in Altadena, fire survivors can get a glimpse into one of the fastest and most affordable ways to rebuild — prefabricated and modular housing.

The Altadena Prefab Showcase has staged six models of factory-built homes and ADUs on the lot this month. Time is running out to visit — the showcase closes up shop after Sunday.

The factory-built “village” is an “educational tool to help Altadenans understand what might be a really stable, predictable, economical pathway home,” said Ryan Conroy, director of architecture at UCLA’s cityLAB, a housing and urban design research center.

The homes range between about $50,000 to more than $200,000. Prefabricated housing is built at a factory offsite, and designs already are approved at the local and state levels, so the process is often cheaper and faster.

“So you can get a home in months, not years, essentially,” Conroy said. “Things can move concurrently, where your home is being built in the factory while you're working on permits with the county, while you're getting your site ready for foundations.”

The homes also are built up to fire codes, and survivors can use them as a permanent dwelling, a temporary home while they rebuild their main house, or as an ADU.

The showcase is a partnership between the UCLA’s cityLAB, L.A. County, prefab housing manufacturers (largely local) and a variety of community-based organizations. Several of the companies, such as AMEG and Liv-Connected, helped rebuild or provide temporary housing after other disasters and recent fires such as in Lahaina, Maui.

A 3D-printed ADU by Gardena-based modular homebuilder Azure.

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A prefab housing showcase has been installed on Lincoln Avenue in Altadena over the past month.

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Option to stay on property

Tameka Alexander and her daughter still are staying in a hotel — their home was spared by the Eaton Fire, but severe smoke damage has made it unsafe to move back in. She says they’re currently waiting for their home’s insulation to be replaced. That’s why she was at the showcase on a recent Saturday — to see if a prefabricated home may help them return to their property sooner, while their house gets remediated.

“It's been nine months, and I just don't know how much longer it'll be, but I would prefer to actually be in something that would allow me to be on the property,” she said.

Various prefab housing designs at the Altadena Prefab Showcase.

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Casty Fortich also was at the showcase one recent Saturday with his wife. They and their two teenaged daughters, plus their dog and cat, have been living in a small apartment in Monrovia since losing their Altadena home of more than 20 years in the Eaton Fire. The rent was affordable for them for up to three years — the time Fortich estimated it could take to rebuild.

But the apartment is cramped — and with their rebuild still years in the making (Fortich hopes it can be complete by summer 2027), the family is considering purchasing a prefab unit to live in while they rebuild, and then they can rent it out as an ADU. Even with insurance, they estimate they have about a $300,000 to $500,000 gap to rebuild.

“A lot of us are unable to pay for a replacement, and so I think this is an option for many to stay on their property,” he said.

Cooler weather has returned to Southern California for the weekend. Coastal communities will experience mostly to partly cloudy skies on Friday.

Along the L.A. and Orange County coast daytime highs will drop to as low as 65 degrees with the warmest areas topping out at 71 degrees.

The eastern San Fernando Valley will have highs from 69 to 74 degrees, meanwhile the western side will see highs from 71 to 76 degrees.

Over in the Inland Empire, temperatures will range from 70 to 75 degrees. In Coachella Valley, communities there will see temperatures from 75 to 80 degrees.

No burn alert in effect

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has issued a no burn alert for most of SoCal until 11:59 p.m. because of high air pollution. That means you should avoid any burning of wood, including fireplaces or manufactured logs made from wax or paper.

The alert applies to O.C. and L.A. County's non-desert areas and Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Excluded from the ban area are residents without natural gas, as well as communities in the High Desert and mountains.

Annnnnnd they're off — blockbusters chasing award contenders everywhere you look. Disney animation, a new Knives Out mystery, an afterlife romance, a bazonkers Brazilian thriller, and a tale of Shakespeare and the healing power of art. Good thing you caught up with Wicked: For Good last week, right?

Here's what's new in theaters for the holiday weekend. (And here's what came out last week, and the week before.)

Zootopia 2 

In theaters now 

Back in 2016, Zootopia grossed over a billion dollars worldwide — so it's no surprise we now have Zootopia 2. In the first movie, our heroes, Judy Hopps, a bunny voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin, and Nick Wilde, a fox voiced by Jason Bateman, became partners in the Zootopia Police Department, having worked together to catch a corrupt assistant mayor and put her away. Now, they're settling into their new jobs, trying to get used to the fact that she's a strict rule-follower, and he's a little more laid-back.

And there's a new problem: a snake has appeared in a reptile-free zone, and he brings to light a mystery from Zootopia's complicated past. New voices like Ke Huy Quan and Andy Samberg add something new to what has already been a winning formula for Disney. Judy and Nick get a little help from a friendly beaver with the voice of Fortune Feimster, and they naturally cross paths with lots of their old pals from the first movie. — Linda Holmes 

Eternity 

In theaters now 

Larry (Miles Teller) chokes on a pretzel, and the next thing he knows, he's on a train with just one destination: a version of purgatory known as the Junction. After that unfortunate event, however, he has two strokes of luck. The first, his assigned Afterlife Coordinator is Anna (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), an efficient, compassionate guide to help him figure out where he wants to spend eternity. The second? His wife of 60+ years, Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) joins him at the Junction shortly thereafter.

But there's a hitch in this story co-written by Pat Cunnane with director David Freyne: Joan's first husband, Luke (Callum Turner), who died in the Korean War, has been waiting there at the Junction for Joan ever since, determined to pick up where they left off in the hereafter. So Joan has a big choice to make: stick with Larry, or gamble on a forever with her first love. — Sarah Handel 

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

In limited theaters; on Netflix Dec. 12 

The following trailer contains an instance of vulgar language. 

Rian Johnson's deliriously topical Benoit Blanc threequel is as gothic as its upstate New York church setting. A young pugilist-turned-priest named Jud (Josh O'Connor) is sent there to assist the hate-filled but popular-with-his-flock Monsignor Jefferson (Josh Brolin). Variously sketchy parishioners Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott, and Thomas Haden Church remain loyal no matter how vile, crude, or destructive their Monsignor becomes. So Jud, being the only person in close proximity not in thrall to him, is immediately the lead suspect when Jefferson drops dead during a service. The filmmaker's jests this time are often jabs at religious hypocrisy and how blind faith binds followers to leaders who are entirely focused on themselves and the power they wield.

If there were any doubt about who exactly is being poked here, it's laid bare when Daryl McCormack, playing a craven conservative politician who's seeking favor with Jefferson, runs down a quick list of far-right talking points that have failed to land for him. There are twists enough to tangle a spider in its own web, jokes and sight gags aplenty, and Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc is as sharply etched as ever, in what is, to my mind, the most rewarding episode in the series. — Bob Mondello

Hamnet

In limited theaters

A woman in scarlet curled up among forest tree roots awaits her hawk's return from hunting in the film's opening image. Agnes (Jessie Buckley) is thought by townsfolk to be the daughter of a witch, and she certainly bewitches young Will (Paul Mescal), the Latin tutor teaching her brothers. The year is 1580, the place, a town near Stratford-upon-Avon, and the two young lovers will soon have three lovely children: firstborn Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Based on Maggie O'Farrell's acclaimed 2020 novel based on the lives of William Shakespeare and his wife, better known as Anne Hathaway, Chloe Zhao's breath-catchingly beautiful film luxuriates in these joy-filled early scenes, painting the family and the natural world around them in sumptuous, earthy tones before bringing that world crashing down around them.

Will, who by this time is writing plays for a theater troupe, is in London when tragedy strikes at home. Buckley's Agnes faces the death of their 11-year-old son alone, and can't forgive Will for not being there. Her grief all-encompassing, she barely registers that he also grieves as he rushes back to London and the theater. The film, though, is more than a portrait of a family tragedy. In its final quarter-hour Zhao shows us that this story has always really been about the transcendent, healing power of art. That sounds almost simpleminded, and it takes some directorial sleight-of-hand and historical fudging to make it work. But work it surely does, in a knockout climax that reduced me, and much of the audience at various film festivals, to sobs. Agnes reaches for the son who is no more, Will brings forth a play that will never die, and if there's been a more staggering cinematic catharsis in recent years, I've not experienced it. — Bob Mondello 

The Secret Agent 

In limited theaters

Marcelo (Wagner Moura) is a dissident on the run in director Kleber Mendonça Filho's bizarro Brazilian thriller, which takes place during Carnival, and mixes (among many, many elements) hitmen, corrupt cops, a '70s movie palace showing Jaws to a shark-obsessed public, a supernatural "hairy leg" that hops around gay cruising spots, officials intent on undermining science and marginalizing women, and an underground resistance movement that operates safe houses and a fake document mill. The central storyline involves Marcelo trying to escape the long reach of a casually brutal regime that's branded him a troublemaker. He needs papers for himself and his young son, and is also trying to find information about his late mother, for reasons that will be revealed in a modern-day framing sequence (in which Moura appears in a second role).

If that all sounds complicated, rest assured it's just the start of a rousing, suspenseful, occasionally hilarious, and ultimately unnerving 160-minute tale of battling political oppression. Mendonça began his career as a journalist and film critic, and his stylistic choices suggest a fondness for the work of De Palma, Scorsese, Fellini, Antonioni, Hitchcock and Tarantino, among others. What he's concocted, though, is strikingly original and speaks to the current political moment. — Bob Mondello
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