What We Know So Far About LA And OC Voter Turnout In The 2022 General Election

We're getting much, much closer to a full picture of the 2022 general election results.

Here's what you should know about the vote totals currently released:

In L.A. County, the combined tallied votes as of Friday add up to about 40.6% of registered voters. After the latest release of 157,126 more votes, officials estimate there are 175,050 ballots left to count (they've been counting about 100,000 to 200,000 votes a day). That would bring final turnout close to 44%.

Keep in mind that Nov. 15, was the final day for votes postmarked by Nov. 8 to arrive, so we don't expect those numbers to change much.

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In Orange County, the current tallies represent about 53.7% of registered voters.

Next L.A. Vote Count Update Is Now Scheduled For Saturday

The L.A. County Registrar-Recorder's office, which initially planned to do tally updates on Tuesdays and Fridays post-election, added additional dates and now will have daily updates through this Saturday.

Orange County elections officials plan to release updates every weekday at 5 p.m. until official results are posted.

It takes this long because after the initial tallies on election night, there were still many, many votes to count and more mail-in ballots were arriving.

Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC, which tracks turnout in L.A. County, noted that people’s voting habits have changed a lot in recent years, given the rise in vote-by-mail. For those reasons, “we really can't try to predict too much out of these early numbers,” she said the day before the election.

In the last midterms, in 2018, statewide turnout among registered voters was 64.5%. It was 57% in L.A. County and 71% in Orange County.

Live Stream Of L.A. County Count

Here’s What We Know So Far

L.A. County Turnout

In recent elections, the vast majority of Southern California voters have been casting their ballots by mail. That’s in line with the trend we’ve seen over the years. In the June primary, 84.7% of L.A. County and 88.6% of Orange County voted by mail.

As of Friday night in L.A. County, which has more than 5.6 million registered voters:

• 2,286,624 ballots were processed and counted
• 79% of those were mail-in ballots
• 21% voted in person

As of Friday night, the county estimated 175,050 ballots remained to be counted.

• Vote by Mail ballots: 170,000
• Conditional Voter Registration ballots: 5,000
• Provisional ballots: 50

Has your ballot been tallied yet? You can track the status of your ballot here.

L.A. County officials have noted that they saw a surge of mail-in ballots returned on Election Day, which they said is typical. They said last Wednesday that "much of the work today is organizing the volumes of ballots received."

Orange County Turnout

As of Friday evening in Orange County, which has more than 1.8 million registered voters:

• 975,116 ballots have been processed
• 84% voted by mail
• 16% voted in person

What's next:

• 23,197 estimated ballots remain to be processed
• Has your ballot been tallied yet? You can track the status of your ballot here.

Orange County plans to release new tallies weekdays at about 5 p.m. until all ballots are counted.

‘Election Month’ vs. Election Day 

Because of the increasing use of vote-by-mail ballots, tallying results has gotten longer, according to the California Voter Foundation. In an analysis, the organization found:

• In Nov. 2004, more than 80% of votes were counted within two days of Election Day, with 32.6% voting by mail. 
• In June 2022, about 50% of ballots were counted within two days of Election Day, with more than 90% of people voting by mail. 

Election officials must physically open mail-in ballots and verify signatures.

“We not only moved from ‘Election Day’ to ‘Election Month’, but we have also moved from ‘Election Night’ to ‘Ballot Counting Month,'” wrote CVF's Kim Alexander.

L.A. City Council Scandal

Unlike past midterm elections, L.A. city residents voted for their next mayor.

This year is the first time the L.A. mayoral race falls in line with statewide elections, after city officials changed the election schedule in an effort to increase voter turnout.

Romero, of USC, said the recent City Hall scandal over leaked audio of racist remarks could also factor in this year.

“The question is how much can it impact turnout, either by galvanizing voters who are angry and want change, or maybe reaffirming voters’ worst fears about corruption and making them feel further disconnected from the political process and maybe wanting to sit out?” she said.