Big Turnout Produces Lines at Many Polls

In a suburban Glendale furniture store, voters sat in spanking new La-Z-Boy recliners waiting their turn. A block from a flash point of the spring riots in South-Central Los Angeles, a dozen voters crammed into a tiny living room, biding their time until a voting booth came open.

Across Los Angeles and the rest of California, an outburst of voting fever appeared to grip the electorate Tuesday, with officials reporting unusually long lines at polls and overall turnout that appeared to reverse a long downward trend.

An hour before the polls closed 68.06% of Los Angeles County registered voters had cast ballots. In 1988, the 7 p.m. turnout was 64.65%

As many as 20% of all California votes may have been cast by absentee ballots, officials said. Statewide, it looked as if a prediction for a 75% turnout, including absentee voters, would be easily met, said Shirley Washington, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State March Fong Eu.

Based on the early counts, officials said, Tuesday’s total turnout would reverse a 28-year downward trend in Presidential elections. Turnout in 1988 was 72.81% of registered voters.

The state record for turnout was set in 1964, when 88.3% of eligible voters showed up to cast ballots in the presidential race between Barry Goldwater and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Orange County Registrar Donald F. Tanney said about half a dozen precincts had to remain open past 8 p.m. because ballots ran short, leaving voters waiting in line as the official closing hour passed. Yuba County polls also ran out of ballots and were forced to use absentee and sample ballots.

At Ocean View Elementary School in Whittier, 70 people were lined up to vote at 7 a.m. when the polls opened, election officials said.

At the Inner City Christian Hall in South Los Angeles, poll inspector Ilena Tell said the lines were the longest she had seen in decades.

“My back is hurting,” Tell said during a rare lull. “We’ve been so busy, I haven’t had a chance to sit down.”

Darrell Brown, a poll worker at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Hollywood, said voters of all ages were flooding into the Hollywood Boulevard polling place just after dark.

“They’re coming in wheelchairs and on crutches--even young kids are coming in and practicing,” Brown said.