LA Voters Flock To Polling Places As Centers Opened Saturday

LOS ANGELES, CA — Hundreds were already filing into Staples Center Saturday morning as "Vote Early Day 2020" began in California. Those eager to vote early lined up at more than 100 polling locations across Los Angeles County Saturday on the first day of openings.

Nationally designated as "Vote Early Day 2020," the campaign is a collaboration between several businesses, popular multimedia organizations and California Secretary of State Alex Padilla to encourage Americans to cast ballots early this year.

"Two days after the final presidential debate and ten days before Election Day, Vote Early Day occurs just as the nation as a whole fully tunes into the election and is ready to learn about their voting options," reads a statement on the campaign website.

Polling locations opening Saturday included large, major entertainment centers, including Banc of California Stadium in Exposition Park, the Forum in Inglewood, Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles and Universal CityWalk in Universal City.

SEE ALSO: Maskless Voters In CA Will Not Be Turned Away On Election Day

The effort coincides with the first openings of vote centers, which will be open through election day on Nov. 3. Any registered voter in Los Angeles County can cast a ballot at any county vote center, regardless of location and the voter's home address.

The vote center concept replaced the traditional precinct system, which used to require voters to cast ballots at designated locations on Election Day. Election officials hope the availability of vote centers will encourage people to cast their ballots early, reducing the possibility of long lines at polling places on election day.

The three ways to vote in this year's general election are by mail, in person or by using one of the thousands of drop boxes installed statewide to return a vote-by-mail ballot.

Vote center locations are limited compared to last year but have opened earlier, in accordance to a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in August.

This, along with another law that Newsom signed back in June that required counties to mail ballots to every active and registered voter by Oct. 3, ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

Voters who have already filled out their vote-by-mail ballot can also drop them off at the vote centers.

These changes are meant to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic by doing away with crammed and long spiraling lines to get into polling places on election day.

Although Padilla, Gov. Gavin Newsom and many other election officials have been urging Californians to reduce the spread of COVID-19 by voting by mail, there are still many reasons why a voter may prefer or need assistance voting.

SEE ALSO: CA 2020 Election: Voting In Person; What To Know

Another 650 vote centers will open Oct. 30 throughout the county, and will also remain open through election day.

An interactive map of all voting drop boxes and vote centers can be found at www.lavote.net.

In Orange County, dozens of residents were lined up Saturday morning at the county's lone vote center to open, at Laguna Niguel Regional Park.

In addition to helping prevent long lines, election officials say voting early will also help speed the process of ballot counting.

According to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's Office, a tally of all vote-by-mail ballots, including those deposited in drop boxes, received prior to election day will be released within 30 minutes of the polls closing at 8 p.m. on Nov. 3. Soon after, a tally will be released of all in-person ballots cast at vote centers ahead of Nov. 3.

The rest of election night will be tallies of ballots cast on Election Day.

Despite efforts to encourage early voting, results for the Nov. 3 election may still be delayed. The switch from precinct voting to regional vote centers majorly slowed the flow of results during the March primary. It took about 10 days to account for all ballots during the primaries, according to multiple sources.

This was in part due to new equipment that was implemented for voters to use at polling places. It was also due to the amount of people registering to vote on Election Day, not to mention a larger amount of mail-in ballots.

And even after the polls close, it could be weeks before final election results are officially declared.

A new state law requires ballots postmarked by Election Day but not received until as much as 17 days later to be included in the vote totals. After the polls close, officials will also have to sort through provisional, or ballots deemed questionable, submitted on election day.

All of these changes could make things more difficult for the public and news outlets to track what percentage of votes have been counted on election night and how many remain to be tallied.

However, more than 1 million mail in ballots have already been cast in California, and the push to vote by mail is expected to alleviate the strain on vote centers and vote machines.

Los Angeles County has also upgraded its technology to eliminate the bottlenecks that caused a slowdown in March, such as a sluggish voter check-in procedure. County employees have also been sent to local polling centers to assist voters, rather than relying solely on volunteers to manage the process.

However, some lines at vote centers may be unavoidable, and the county has developed online and mobile technology to allow voters to check wait times at various locations and choose the fastest option.

L.A. County election officials will release updated vote tallies twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, until all ballots are counted.

The City News Service contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on the Los Angeles Patch