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Preliminary Election Results Show a 'City Divided'
Photo by kla0467 via Flickr
FormerDaily News Editor turned grassroots activist Ron Kaye last week took an in-depth look at the preliminary election results district by district. He came to some interesting conclusions and one thing that surprised us most was that five of the fifteen council districts--in the Valley and on the Westside--hold nearly half of the city's voting population:
Additionally, the LA Times has
a great map graphic showing election precincts and how they voted for Mayor and Measure B, the controversial solar power initiative.
The mayor got less than half the vote in the districts of Greig Smith (36%), Dennis Zine (43%), Wendy Greuel (44%) and Bill Rosendahl (48%) and 51% in Jack Weiss' district. The trend was even more dramatic when it comes to Measure B which was overwhelmingly rejected in the same five council districts: Smith (68%), Zine (62%), Weiss (60%), Greuel (59%) and Rosendahl (58%).
These five districts, with 44.5% of registered voters, accounted for 50.5% of the ballots cast and likely will account for even more when the 34,000 [sic] uncounted absentee ballots are finally tallied.
The contrast is stark when those numbers on Measure B are compared to how voters went in five heavily minority districts of Jan Perry, Bernard Parks, Herb Wesson, Eric Garcetti and Jose Huizar where the No on Measure B campaign got just 25 to 40% of the vote.
The numbers are telling. We are a city divided against itself, a city where 85% percent of the people abdicate their civic responsibilities entirely and where those who care enough to vote are divided by race, class and geography.
46,000 votes are yet to be counted. The results of those will finally put to rest the fate of Measure B. Then on May 19th, we are back to voting booth.
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