Turnout was expected to be low for Tuesday’s Los Angeles County elections.
How low was it?
It was so low that it may end up as a record low.
Unofficial figures released early Wednesday put the turnout figure at 11.29 percent. That could be an all-time low for a Los Angeles local election.
Of the 593,233 ballots tallied as of early Wednesday, 239,853 — or roughly 40 percent — were vote-by-mail, while the rest were cast at the polls, according to the county Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office.
It was unclear how many late, provisional and questioned ballots still need to be counted, and how they would change the final turnout figure.
Until now, the lowest turnout was in 2009 with 18 percent when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was reelected.
The top turnout of 76 percent was in 1969 when incumbent Mayor Sam Yorty beat Tom Bradley. However, Bradley became the first Los Angeles black mayor four years later when Yorty lost the return match.
The Tuesday local election included a quarter-cent sales tax measure to combat homelessness, a successful re-election run by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and local council and mayoral races in more than two dozen municipalities.