After reporting revealed no polling sites, pop-up vote centers coming to Boyle Heights

This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on Oct. 28, 2025.

Boyle Heights residents who want to vote in person will be able to do so at four pop-up vote centers in the upcoming election, Los Angeles County officials confirmed on Monday.

The announcement comes after Boyle Heights Beat reported no polling places would be available in the neighborhood for the Nov. 4 statewide special election. This would have required that Boyle Heights residents travel to East L.A., downtown L.A. or another Eastside neighborhood for their nearest vote center.

“Boyle Heights has long been a priority for Vote Center placement in Los Angeles County, and we will continue that tradition for this election and all upcoming elections,” Dean Logan, registrar-recorder/county clerk for L.A. County, said in a statement.

Logan said the pop-up vote centers in Boyle Heights were made possible through a partnership with county, city and community partners. He said “scheduling conflicts” made it difficult to secure city facilities to serve as formal vote centers “under the short lead time” for the special election.

Here are the times and locations for the pop-up vote centers:

• Saturday, Nov. 1: Día de Muertos Community Block Party, 6-10 p.m., at 1831 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90033
• Sunday, Nov. 2, and Monday, Nov. 3: Boyle Heights City Hall parking area, 10 a.m.-7 p.m., at 2130 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90033
• Tuesday, Nov. 4: Boyle Heights Senior Center, 7 a.m.-8 p.m., at 2839 E 3rd St., Los Angeles, CA 90033

In a statement on Friday, L.A. County Board Supervisor Hilda Solis said she requested that the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk “take immediate steps to ensure residents would have access to in-person voting.”

“Every community deserves the opportunity to make its voice heard, and no neighborhood should be left without accessible options to participate in our democracy,” Solis said.

In another statement, L.A. City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado said she was working with Solis to “ensure that communities like Boyle Heights are fully represented in the democratic process.”

Local organizers with InnerCity Struggle, a Boyle Heights-based group that conducts voter outreach in the Eastside, discovered the community’s lack of vote centers on Oct. 17 while reviewing the LA County Vote Centers map.

Henry Perez, executive director of the group, feared that voters would decide it was too difficult to get to a polling location outside their neighborhood, especially at a time when immigration raids are contributing to the stress and anxiety around traveling through L.A. County.

“We’re happy that the county registrar’s office took our concerns seriously and have moved to create a better opportunity for the community of Boyle Heights to be able to vote for this upcoming special election,” Perez said.

However, Perez added, “we still believe that it is not enough to have a couple of pop-up voter centers for a limited amount of time around the community.”

Perez said InnerCity Struggle has been fielding calls from voters asking where they can vote in person. The group had to direct them to other nearby polling sites outside Boyle Heights, as well as drop box locations.

“I hope that this provides an important lesson to the county voter registrar’s office that they cannot leave an entire community without a polling center, and we hope that this does not happen again in any future election,” he added.

“When we see an injustice happening in our community, it is important for us to speak up loudly to make sure that these injustices are addressed,” Perez continued. “Because we spoke up loudly, they did what they knew they had to do and what they could have done from the very beginning.”

A spokesperson for the registrar-recorder/county clerk’s office previously said that November’s special election will see just 250 vote centers, compared with 640 during last year’s general election. He pointed to the time necessary to recruit vote centers, and noted a community space that previously served as a polling place in Boyle Heights was unavailable for Nov. 4.

On the ballot is Proposition 50, a measure that, if passed, would temporarily redraw California’s congressional maps to help Democrats win more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Gov. Gavin Newsom launched the effort behind Proposition 50 after the Texas state legislature approved new maps that would give Republicans an advantage in the 2026 midterm elections, LAist reported.