The Brief

Huntington Beach voters will soon decide whether they want to require people to show ID to vote in city elections.

The ID requirement is the heart of Measure A — also known as Charter Amendment Measure No. 1 — is one of three measures on the city's March 5 ballot. Measure A also asks voters if they want the city to monitor ballot drop boxes and add more in-person polling locations.

The measure is one of the first big tests of residents' feelings about the city's sharp turn to the right under the leadership of an ultra-conservative city council majority, elected in 2022.

Supporters say Measure A would restore voters' trust in the election process and ensure that only registered voters are casting ballots.

The proposal has set off alarm bells among voting rights advocates and state leaders, who point to evidence that voter ID requirements disproportionately impact low-income people and non-white voters. They say the state and county already have robust measures in place to ensure voters are who they say they are.

Local opponents also worry the ID requirement could come at a high price to taxpayers, for example, if the city has to defend it in court.

Huntington Beach Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark and her three conservative colleagues on the city council crafted the measure and voted in October to put it on the ballot. Van Der Mark, who is Latina and says she came from a low-income, minority community, told LAist she's offended by opponents' insinuation that requiring voter ID is "racist."

"To me, it was insulting for them to say that just because we were poor, or maybe had a little more melanin, we weren't capable of getting IDs," she said.

What the ballot measure actually says

If voters approve Measure A, it would change the city's charter (like a Constitution for cities) to read that the city "may verify the eligibility of Electors by voter identification" in municipal elections starting in 2026.

Huntington Beach Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark said her goal is to restore residents' confidence in the election system.

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Lauren Justice

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CalMatters

)

The city council changed the language from "shall verify" to "may verify" while finalizing the measure for the ballot. Van Der Mark told LAist if the measure passes, the city council would then have additional discussions about how to implement it.

The ballot measure does not specify what type of ID the city might require voters to show. It also doesn't specify whether ID would be required only at polling places or also with mail-in ballots. (Van Der Mark told LAist the intention is that it would apply only to voting in person).

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School, said the vague language raises questions about who might be affected by the measure, if it passes, and how vulnerable it might be to legal challenges.

"If you require a single card, like a driver's license, that's a lot more restrictive than if you require some other form of proof that you are who you say you are," Levitt said. "And I don't think this proposed charter amendment gives the voters any real sense of whether the city council is inclined to be permissive or restrictive or none of the above."

How does California verify voters?

California puts the bulk of its voter identification efforts on the registration process, Levitt explained. When registering to vote, you are asked to provide your driver's license number, state identification number, or the last four digits of your Social Security number.

You also have to sign an affidavit. Lying on a voter registration affidavit is punishable by up to three years in prison.

If, when registering to vote, you do not provide your driver's license number, state ID or social security number, you must provide additional identification in order to vote for the first time at a polling place or by mail.

The potential types of identification you can show is extensive (here's the list) and includes a photo ID issued by the military, a school, health club, insurance plan or public housing development; or an up-to-date document that includes your name and address, such as a utility bill, bank statement or government paycheck.

Elections officials — in Orange County, this is the O.C. Registrar of Voters — are also required to verify that the signatures on vote-by-mail ballots and provisional ballots match those in voter registration records.

All of these measures put together are California's way — in conjunction with federal voting law — of "trying to strike a balance between having a secure election and an accessible election," said Caltech political science professor Michael Alvarez.

Is a Voter ID requirement legal?

Measure A faced legal threats even before ballots were mailed out.

California's attorney general and the state's top election official warned Huntington Beach that requiring voter ID would violate state law. In a joint letter to Huntington Beach officials in September, before the city council's vote, Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote that by requiring "a higher standard of proof than set out in the Elections Code," the proposal would likely violate the state's prohibition against "mass, indiscriminate, and groundless challenging of voters."

They said if the measure is implemented, "we stand ready to take appropriate action to ensure that voters’ rights are protected, and state election laws are enforced."

In a Sept. 28 city council meeting, Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates called the legal arguments in the letter "specious." He noted that state law grants charter cities like Huntington Beach authority over the conduct of city elections.

Then, in November, a Huntington Beach resident challenged the measure in court, seeking to keep it off the ballot. They argued that requiring voter ID violates state election law and Californians' right to vote.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Nico Dourbetas ruled that voters should be allowed to weigh in on the measure first. If voters approve it and the city begins implementation, then it may be appropriate for the court to weigh in on whether it violates the Constitution, Dourbetas ruled.

How much would Measure A cost?

Former Huntington Beach Mayor Connie Boardman, who's campaigning against Measure A, worries about the unknown cost to taxpayers of implementing a voter ID requirement — and likely getting sued over it.

"What's going to be cut to pay for this?" she said in an interview with LAist. "The council has put something on the ballot they want the voters to approve, but they can't tell us how much it's going to cost," Boardman said.

Still, some estimates have been put forth.

Putting the initiative on the Mar. 5, 2024 primary ballot is costing the city $327,428 to $391,628, according to an initial estimate that O.C. Registrar Bob Page shared with LAist.

The cost to taxpayers could skyrocket from there, especially if the registrar's office can't or won't continue to run elections for Huntington Beach, as it currently does. It's generally much cheaper to do this than for a city to hold its own election.

Page told LAist he can't comment on the matter because he is conducting the current election.

Gates, the city attorney, wrote in his analysis of Measure A for voters that it would lead to an "undetermined" increase in costs to the city.

But last year city staff made initial calculations of at least some of the costs.

They estimated it would cost at least $69,000 to train and deploy poll workers to check voter IDs.

If the city has to run its own elections rather than continue to rely on the Orange County Registrar of Voters, staff estimated it would cost an additional $1.35 million to $1.69 million for the city to hold its first stand-alone election in 2026.

That includes $664,000 to $858,000 for initial startup costs, including purchasing equipment, and $689,000 to $832,000 in recurring costs per election, according to the staff report.

In comparison, the city paid the registrar's office $303,656 in 2022 to put local races (four city council seats, the city attorney, and three city measures) on the November general election ballot.

Huntington Beach's annual budget is approximately $500 million.

Why Voter ID is so controversial

In a news release that accompanied the warning letter to Huntington Beach officials, the Secretary of State noted that voter ID requirements have historically been used to disenfranchise eligible voters, especially low-income people and people of color.

Alvarez, the Caltech professor, said unequal treatment of voters can show up in more subtle ways when voter ID is required at polling places. For example, he said, when polling places are run by neighborhood volunteers, a poll worker may not bother to ask for ID from someone they know, but require it of someone they don't recognize.

"In many cases, that stranger may be a person from a marginalized community, maybe somebody who they're not familiar with," Alvarez said. "That's an easy way where these kinds of policies can be applied in an unequal manner."

He said requiring voter ID at the polls can also snarl the voting process in other ways, "ranging from disturbances that arise when people don't want to show their ID or get turned away to, again, the possible discriminatory use of these requirements, to people forgetting and just not having the government-issued ID when they show up to vote."

Documented instances of voter fraud are extremely rare in California, according to both Alvarez and Levitt, the law professor.

A Heritage Foundation database of voter fraud turns up just 17 cases in California since 2020. Fifteen of the cases resulted in criminal convictions. One election, the 2021 city council run-off election in Compton, was overturned because of fraud. (The organization’s website notes that the fraud database is not an exhaustive list but rather “is intended to demonstrate the vulnerabilities in the election system and the many ways in which fraud is committed.“)

"What problem are they trying to solve?" Alvarez asked.

Where did this all begin?

The voter ID proposal is one of many actions that have rankled state officials and local opponents since an uber-conservative majority took control of Huntington Beach's city council in 2022.

The council has also sued the state over housing laws, banned the Pride flag from city flagpoles, restricted minors' access to books about puberty and sexuality and, most recently, passed a resolution supporting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in his fight with the Biden administration over border policy.

The three-member Democrat minority bloc on the city council has opposed all of these actions, but has been unable to stop them.

Last year, an ad hoc committee made up of Van Der Mark and fellow council members Pat Burns and Tony Strickland proposed the voter ID requirement, among other changes to the city's charter.

In a phone interview, Van Der Mark noted that other states require voter ID at the polls. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 37 states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show ID before voting in person.

"It's not a novel concept," Van Der Mark said. "Other states are already doing it. We're just asking to do it as a city."

She told LAist her impetus for supporting the voter ID rule is to restore residents' confidence in the election system.

"A lot of people are not voting because they say, 'My vote doesn't count. I keep voting and we just keep losing.' If asking for ID will restore the faith in our elections to where people are going to get out and vote, then we should do it," she said.

Further reading

• LAist's Orange County Voter Game Plan Guide: Huntington Beach Ballot Measures
• Huntington Beach election page — official ballot statement, impartial analysis, arguments for and against
• Protect HB, a group opposed to the ballot measures
• Huntington Beach’s New Conservative Council Bans Pride Flag On City Property (LAist)
• The Pride Flag Is Gone. Library Books Are Under Review. It’s A New Era Of Backlash Politics In California (CalMatters/LAist)

The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday moved to dismiss its own lawsuit that sought to stop California from counting roughly 20,000 ballots it alleged went to noncitizens until their immigration status could be verified.

The request to dismiss the case comes days after Republicans’ significant losses in the midterm elections and about a week before a scheduled hearing where a special master was slated to evaluate the accuracy of the list. California officials have previously said the list is out of date and includes legitimate voters — a sentiment that the federal judge presiding over the case echoed in his blistering order denying the federal government’s request.

The case was at the forefront of President Donald Trump’s administration’s effort to assert control over state-run elections across the country, which Trump has said are rife with illegal voting without providing evidence.

The Department of Justice remains enmeshed in litigation with multiple immigrant and voting rights groups seeking to limit its use of the list of what is says are suspected noncitizens. Another controversial suit it filed in Alaska at Trump’s direction before the election to block the victory of the Democrat in that state’s Senate race was swiftly dismissed by a federal judge. The administration is appealing that ruling but has yet to file a full brief at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

California had processed roughly 9 million ballots as of early Friday, with nearly 5 million still left to be counted, according to state election officials. The motion to dismiss the lawsuit said that, by the time of the upcoming hearing, the state will have already irreparably “commingled the challenged ballots with lawful ones.”

“The relief the United States sought and needed is no longer available—rendering voluntary dismissal necessary,” the motion said.

Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, previously argued in court that the lawsuit would be irrelevant after election day, because there would be no way to sequester the ones allegedly belonging to noncitizens. The lawsuit was filed in mid-October, when ballots had been sent to all of the state’s 23 million registered voters, and after hundreds of thousands of ballots were already processed. Once a ballot is processed, it is completely anonymized.

Essayli said at the time the lawsuit was filed that his goal was to “safeguard the integrity of the election so it doesn’t have an effect on the upcoming election.”

“We want to stop the illegal voting. We don’t want to chase it later,” he said outside of court the week before the election.

California prosecutors in recent weeks have arrested over 30 noncitizens who are accused of illegally registering to vote. Some who were arrested were also accused of voting in previous elections. Elections clerks around California in the week before the election were sent subpoenas to testify before grand juries slated to convene in November. It’s not clear who is being criminally charged in those cases, but the department does not typically subpoena people whom it regards as targets of a criminal investigation to appear before a grand jury.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter appointed the special master in late October, shortly after allowing California to proceed with elections as planned. Carter, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, argued in his blistering order that separating ballots at that late stage would risk disenfranchising citizens and warned it would “wreak havoc” on the midterm elections.

The special master would have also considered whether or not California election officials did in fact have a mechanism for separating the ballots.

Tech giants Meta, Google, and TikTok are suing to block a landmark California law meant to protect kids’ mental health on social media platforms.

The law, one of a slate of bills signed by Gov. Newsom this year to protect kids online, would block social media companies from offering “addictive” features to teens under 16.

Set to go into effect in January, the law defines addictive features as design choices like infinite scroll, autoplay, and recommendations. Those features are blamed in part for a teen mental health crisis, which the law seeks to curb.

The three suits, filed in multiple federal courts in California this week, argue that the law would infringe on the companies’ First Amendment rights. The Meta suit, for example, says that the law undermines the “fundamental principle” of free speech by making the state “the editor, curator, and controller of online speech.”

Google, which owns YouTube, similarly argues in its lawsuit that the law would “frustrate YouTube’s efforts to provide under-16 users with safe, responsible, and enriching experiences on the platform.”

The companies want the courts to block the law before it takes effect.

When the measure was before the California Legislature, some groups, like digital rights organization the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argued the law would amount to a full ban on social media for teenagers because it was so broad and the features it regulated so fundamental to the platforms. Teens would then miss out on precious online resources, the groups said.

NetChoice, a tech industry-aligned group, also criticized the law. It released a statement supporting the lawsuits, saying “the state cannot restrict minors' access to protected expression simply because it thinks the expression is bad for them.”

A supporter of the law, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in response to the lawsuits that courts have already been “rejecting the industry’s claims that the First Amendment shields them from accountability.”

The bill’s passage was just one in a recent series of damaging moments for the tech industry, which has faced intense scrutiny over its impact on teens’ mental health. Meta agreed in August to pay as much as $17 billion as part of a settlement with 47 states that argued the company had engineered its products to be addictive to children.

A TikTok spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the suits. A Meta spokesperson declined to attach their name to a statement and CalMatters declined to publish it.

“We believe parents are best positioned to make the right decisions for their families, which is why we offer a range of protections and tools that put parents in control,” José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson, said in an email. “Overly broad laws like this actually break the systems we’ve built to help kids find high-quality, age-appropriate videos.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Three stories about climate change are playing out like popular movie genres as United Nations climate negotiations begin in Antalya, Turkey.

There’s the horror story. Many scientists believe global warming is accelerating. Two months ago, the U.N. readjusted its decade-old goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) because the world is blowing past that threshold. The fallout from rising temperatures is felt globally, with Europe’s deadly summer heat waves and Nepal’s devastating flooding as stark examples.

There’s the love triangle. For more than a century, the world has been powered by coal, oil and gas. This love affair spurred economic development, as well as the emissions warming the planet. But renewable energy is capturing some of the world’s attention because it’s cheaper and cleaner than fossil fuels. Instead of switching from one to the other, the world is using both to meet demand from power-hungry artificial intelligence and ever-growing economic development. This isn’t helping curb climate change.

Then there’s the war movie. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered a European energy shock. This year the United States and Israel bombed Iran. The conflict closed the Strait of Hormuz and sent fossil fuel prices skyrocketing, forcing nations to rethink their energy systems.

These stories are colliding as the 31st Conference of Parties, or COP31, starts Monday with speeches from world leaders and will later dig into how to follow through on past climate pledges.

A key issue this year is the implementation of promises to transition away from fossil fuels. Co-host Turkey is also pushing a separate plan that would help do that by shifting more global energy use — including transportation — to electricity generated from solar and wind power. Negotiators also will hash out how to provide promised funds to poor countries to switch to renewables, adapt to a warmer world and recover from climate-induced damage.

“It’s really the moment that we place a magnifying lens on what’s happening in the world on climate change, both good and bad,” David Waskow, international climate chief at the World Resources Institute, said.

While the U.S. is the world’s largest historic carbon polluter, it skipped last year’s COP and isn’t expected to participate this year.

“There’s always two topics in the climate negotiations that are relevant and difficult,” said Niklas Höhne, co-founder of Germany’s NewClimate Institute. “The first one is who produces emissions (and) how much. That is difficult enough. But what is even more complicated is the other issue, and that is who pays. And on this one, we are particularly in a difficult situation because the U.S., as the largest contributor, has dropped out. And there’s no other player who can jump in.”

Global climate efforts are off track

Eleven years ago, the world was on track to hit 4 C (7.2 F) of warming above preindustrial levels by the end of the century. In 2015, nations set the goal of keeping warming to below 2 C (3.6 F), but with a preferred limit of 1.5 C (2.7 F), as measured over a multi-year period.

Now, the world is at 1.4 C (2.5 F) of warming and is hurtling toward 2.6 C (4.7 F), the U.N. found.

October 2026 was the hottest October on record, and 2026 is virtually certain to end up as the second year to exceed the 1.5 degree Celsius level, behind 2024, the European climate agency Copernicus announced Friday.

“We have failed so far,” said Johan Rockström, director of Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Rockström said Earth will likely experience more extreme weather, such as floods, droughts and storms, and may soon reach “tipping points,” such as ocean currents changing and the Amazon rainforest collapsing.

It comes down to fossil fuels

Even though burning fossil fuels is the main cause of warming, it has rarely been targeted in final documents agreed upon at the conference, mostly because those decisions require consensus.

“The reason we are seeing the breach of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming is because we avoided the absolutely fundamental question of how climate change happened and what’s responsible, the source of the problem and that’s fossil fuels,” said Harjeet Singh, founding director of Satat Sampada Climate Foundation. “Unless and until we resolve the issue of fossil fuel phase out, we will not be able to deal with the problem.”

Brazil, which hosted COP30 last year, this month released a detailed voluntary roadmap for how countries could transition away from fossil fuels.

The roadmap is meant to turn the “big problem” of reducing fossil fuels into “smaller actionable solutions,” Ana Toni, who served as CEO of last year’s climate talks, said. One key thing nations must do is stop subsidizing fossil fuels, she said. The U.N. estimates fossil fuel subsidies globally hit $1.1 trillion this year.

“What’s standing in the way is not so much technology as governments and incumbent industries,” said Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics. “One cannot underestimate the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry in slowing down action.”

Climate talks bring hope and frustration

Barbados youth activist Ashley Lashley’s first COP was five years ago. She was frustrated by the lack of progress then, but hopeful because there was urgency to keep the 1.5-degree goal alive.

Lashley still attends negotiations with some hope, but she is more frustrated than ever. She said “the science has become more alarming, but yet politically we seem to be negotiating how much failure we are prepared to tolerate.”

Qiyun Woo, a Singaporean youth environmentalist, said her generation is tired of “seeing their present and futures blanketed in wildfire smoke, in devastating floods (and) landslides.”

What gives most experts hope is how cheap solar and wind energy are, along with electric car growth, strengthening the economic argument for transitioning away from fossil fuels.

“It has never been as easy to reduce emissions as it is today because, again, this year, renewable energy has been developing faster than before,” Höhne said.

Hope for progress on the sidelines

Much of the work at climate negotiations happens on the sidelines, where not everyone has to agree and some nations do more than others.

One important sideline initiative this year is Turkey’s goal of increasing electricity’s share of global energy use from 21% to 35% by 2035, preferably by using renewable power.

Mohamed Adow, a veteran COP observer and director of Power Shift Africa, said the conference is taking place at a time when the world is deeply fragmented.

“The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has intensified economic and energy security pressures,” he said. “We don’t expect this particular conference to be able to sufficiently respond to the present day challenge ... that is affecting livelihoods and economies.”

The climate talks are hindered by the continued absence of the U.S., Adow said, adding that it wasn’t fair to nations like Nepal, which have to face catastrophic destruction alone while the world’s wealthiest country and biggest polluter sits on the fence.

“A time will come when we will have to hold the U.S. accountable for the climate harms that it’s caused,” he said.

___

Borenstein reported from Washington, Delgado from Bangkok and Arasu from Bengaluru, India.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

This is the Nov. 6 issue of Make It Make Sense, LAist's elections newsletter breaking down the results of the 2026 general election. You can sign up here to receive issues in your inbox through the end of November.

Good morning! We’re beginning to feel the drag of Election Month. Cue the 🎶 Jeopardy music 🎶. We’re still waiting for an outcome on a lot of our statewide propositions, but we’ve got some juicy tax updates (if you can call them that) and another key race call.

First, now that Nithya Raman will be L.A.’s next mayor, what happens to her current council seat that stretches from the San Fernando Valley to the Santa Monica Mountains?

LAist asked L.A. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson’s office: “We look forward to working with Mayor-elect Raman and will discuss with her an appointment who best serves the residents of the Fourth District,” Martin Schlageter, a senior adviser to Harris-Dawson, said in a statement.

That indicates the district could avoid a special election, but who could be appointed is still very much up in the air.

Meanwhile, Raman will have to work closely with a City Council that didn’t back her bid for mayor. LAist asked the 12 members who will be working alongside her about how they plan to work with her — read what they said here.

🌴 L.A. city attorney: Marissa Roy takes the win with a commanding lead

• What happened: Marissa Roy will be the next L.A. city attorney. Her opponent, John McKinney, conceded the race, saying in a statement, “While the results are not what we hoped for, I accept the outcome and congratulate Marissa Roy on her victory. I wish her well as she prepares to serve as Los Angeles City Attorney. Her success in protecting our residents and serving the public interest will be important to the future of our city.”
• How we got here: Roy held onto a strong lead over McKinney ever since polls closed, and currently has more than twice as many votes. Roy will be a fresh face in the role after incumbent city attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto was ousted in the June primary in a rare defeat of an elected city official.
• What the candidates had to say:
  
  • Roy said on social media Wednesday that election night was “a really good night for the people who believe that we should take care of one another, that we can stand up for our rights — even in what feels like an increasingly lawless world — and that we will achieve justice when we fight for it.”
  • McKinney added that he is deeply grateful for everyone who supported his campaign, including voters, volunteers and supporters.
• What’s at stake: The city attorney runs an office of more than 550 lawyers representing L.A. in all legal matters, including filing lawsuits and defending against them. Roy, backed by powerful progressives like U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, has vowed to take on the Trump administration in court.

💸 L.A. and O.C. voters are saying yes to dozens of tax measures

• What happened: By LAist’s count, more than 30 cities or districts in L.A. and Orange counties asked voters to approve tax measures this election. They include sales taxes — like Measure FD in the city of Los Angeles — hotel taxes, business taxes and utility taxes. So far, all but six seem likely to pass.
• 🌴Measure FD is passing: L.A. city voters are steadily approving (53.68%) another half-cent sales tax, this time to bolster L.A. Fire Department resources. The sales tax will go up to 10.75%, although residents likely won’t start paying the higher rate until spring. And it still won’t be the highest in the county — Palmdale and Lancaster pay 11.75%, and San Gabriel's newly passed Measure PS brings its combined rate to 12%.
• 🌴 South Gate utility users tax is failing: The L.A. County city is asking residents to approve an 8% tax that would be added to bills for utilities such as electricity, water, cable and phone services. Voters are resoundingly rejecting Measure SG, with nearly 70% saying “no.”
• 🌴🍊 Transient occupancy taxes: Nearly a dozen of these proposals, which tax overnight hotel guests or short-term rentals, are passing in cities from Burbank in L.A. County to Los Alamitos in O.C. You can see more details in our roundup here.
  

Check out the vote count charts for these too-close-to-call races

🌴 L.A. City Council District 3

• What’s happening: This San Fernando Valley race to replace Bob Blumenfield is getting spicy as more results roll in. Tim Gaspar, an entrepreneur who has said the city needs someone coming from the outside, is losing his early lead. He’s fallen 875 votes behind Barri Worth Girvan, a Valley community advocate with experience in various government offices.
  
  • Worth Girvan said in a social media post Thursday that she is encouraged by the trend so far. “While many ballots remain to be counted and results will continue to shift, we expect this trend to continue as more mail-in ballots are tallied, and we remain cautiously optimistic that when all the votes are counted, we will prevail.”

🌴 L.A. City Council District 9

• What’s happening: The race to succeed Curren Price has been narrowing each day. Jose Ugarte had more than a 14-point lead over Estuardo Mazariegos when polls closed, but it has since shrunk to about four. Ugarte, a community outreach director, is endorsed by Price and a few other members of the City Council. Mazariegos leans more to the left and is supported by the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, as well as L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia.
  
  • Ugarte said on social media Thursday that while ballots are still being counted, “we remain optimistic.”

🍊 O.C. Supervisors District 4
In the race for the Fourth District, Democrat and Buena Park mayor Connor Traut is leading with 50.80% of the vote over Republican Tim Shaw, a member of the O.C. Board of Education.

🍊 O.C. Supervisors District 5
Democratic incumbent Katrina Foley is still on track to keep her Fifth District seat against Republican Assemblymember Diane Dixon, with a gap that’s widened to 7,600 votes. If either Republican wins, it will change the balance of power on the Board of Supervisors.

What else got called

• 🥑 State superintendent: Republican Sonja Shaw is conceding the race to Democrat Richard Barrera, who is more than a million votes ahead. In a social media post Wednesday, Shaw wrote, “Last night, voters made their choice. I would be lying if I said my heart wasn’t heavy.” Barrera is a labor leader and union organizer in San Diego, and has served on the board of San Diego Unified for nearly two decades.
• 🌴 L.A. County Superior Court judge: Office No. 87 is settled. Attorney David DeJute has conceded the race to Anthony "A.J." Bayne, a deputy public defender with over 30 years of courtroom experience. Bayne ran without a long roster of Democratic endorsements, which were a common fixture this cycle for judicial candidates. He was rated “well qualified” by the L.A. County Bar Association.

👀 We’re still watching 👀

• 🥑 Insurance commissioner: We’re still holding our breath on the race to lead the nation’s largest property and casualty insurance market. Two Democrats are trying to take on the role: State Sen. Ben Allen and attorney Jane Kim. Allen (47.3%) has been steadily trailing Kim (52.7%), who slightly bumped up her lead in the last few days.
• 🥑 The remaining props:
  
  • Prop 4: This proposal would lift the ban that keeps California and many local governments from using tax dollars to fund political campaigns. It could reshape how elections are funded, but so far, it’s failing by a few percentage points.
  • Prop 5: Should California change how it replaces elected state officials being recalled? The Legislature put it on the ballot, and it’s succeeding by 2 percentage points. If it holds on to the lead, voters would no longer vote on a recall and a replacement in the same election, instead punting a successor to a separate ballot.
  • Prop 38: This proposition is passing by a decently wide margin (55.1%). It would pave the way for the state to borrow $8.4 billion in bonds for immunology research. Supporters argued that the research could lead to treatments that help people living with cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's, but opponents say half the funds would go to just one research group.
  • Props 40, 41, 42: This is the billionaire’s tax and the two countermeasures designed to kill it. So far, it’s looking like Prop 40, the wealth tax, is failing (54.5% “no”), as well as Prop 41 (53.4% “no”), which would prohibit new tax revenue from being excluded from the state spending limit. The other, Prop 42, may pass (53.3% “yes”), which would ban new wealth taxes on personal property.
  • Prop 43: Speaking of taxes … this would make it harder to pass and raise some local taxes by bumping up the threshold of votes to a two-thirds majority. It would specifically apply to special tax measures put up by voters. It’s currently failing by about a million votes.
  • Prop 45: This is designed to limit environmental reviews for certain projects, such as housing and infrastructure, by cutting the time it takes to go through the state’s evaluation process. It’s opposed by groups like the National Wildlife Federation, and it's failing by about a 10-point margin.
• 🌴 L.A. County’s judicial seats: The races for offices 64 and 65 are still up in the air, but there are clear leaders. Maria Ghobadi, a deputy district attorney running for seat 64, has nearly 53% of the vote, while Justin Allen Clayton, a deputy public defender running in 65, has 56%. Neither of their competitors has conceded yet. Meanwhile, the fight for Office No. 131 between two public defenders is narrowing. David Ross trails Donna Tryfman, but he picked up more votes in this morning’s drop.

😰 Is it over yet? 😰

These results are based on about 8.9 million votes counted so far statewide — more than 2.5 million in L.A. County and nearly 892,000 in Orange County.

We still have a ways to go! The California secretary of state estimates there are 4.8 million ballots left to count overall, which includes 642,000 in L.A. County and 298,270 in O.C.

This election is turning out to be a banner year for voter turnout — we’re on track to far exceed the 2022 midterms. But we won’t know the full picture until after Nov. 10, the deadline for mail-in ballots to arrive. You can check on the status of your ballot via the state’s BallotTrax system.

The next local ballot counts drop this afternoon starting around 4 p.m., but hey, we’re going into the weekend! From here on out, we’ll only be back in your inboxes when there’s major news to share — like a call on the billionaire’s tax — and we’ll focus on understanding what these results mean for your life in Southern California.

📰 Catch up quick

If this is your first day reading Make It Make Sense, you can get caught up on our past issues here:

• Nov. 5: Nithya Raman wins the L.A. mayor’s race
• Nov. 5: All 8 L.A. city measures could pass
• Nov. 4: We’ve got a new governor, plus voter ID fails

Otherwise, you can keep up with the results here:

• L.A. County
• Orange County