Hawthorne Press Tribune
Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 60, No. 48 - November 29, 2018
Inside
This Issue
Calendar of Events.............3
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................4
Classifieds............................3
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne Happenings....3
Lawndale..............................4
Letters...................................3
Legals.................................6,7
Pets........................................7
Weekend
Forecast
Friday
Partly
Cloudy
66˚/53˚
Saturday
Partly
Cloudy
63˚/51˚
Sunday
Mostly
Sunny
61˚/46˚
The Weekly Newspaper of Hawthorne
Coffee with a Cop Recognition
A plaque recognizing the Coffee with a Cop program was presented by Patty Hickman, Treasurer of the South Bay Interfaith Council, to Lt. Robby Williams and Interim Chief Mike Ishii for leading the
program and bringing together residents of the community with officers. Photo: City of Hawthorne.
Public Meetings About to Kick Off
to Relocate Future Voting Places
By Rob McCarthy
Los Angeles County officials have called a
series of meetings to involve local residents in
the selection of voting locations for the next
general election in two years. Using suggestions
from community members and civic groups,
the county’s election office will place all-new
voter centers nearer to public transportation and
relax rules that have hindered voter turnout.
The first meeting for South Bay cities and
unincorporated areas is from 6 to 8 p.m.
on Dec. 6 at the Redondo Beach Public Library.
The library is at 303 N. Pacific Coast
Hwy. The county Registrar-Recorder’s Office
will present election information for residents
and community leaders.
Other sessions are planned for Dec. 11 at
Inglewood City Hall and Jan. 12. The location
of the January meeting hasn’t been announced,
according to the election office that oversees
general, primary and local elections. A Spanish
translator will be available for the January event.
The county is preparing to implement changes
in less than 18 months. The countywide election
system in March 2020 will debut a new
voting model to comply with the California
Voter’s Choice Act, which passed in 2016. The
traditional polling places will be replaced by
vote centers, which will be open 11 days during
the next statewide and national election. The
new format also expands voters’ choices on
where they will vote. No longer will they be
assigned to a specific location or city.
The community meetings will provide an
overview to the “Voting Solutions for All People”
experience and allow community members to ask
questions and offer input about the site of future
vote centers in the next election cycle in 2020,
county officials said. The Dec. 6 meeting is open
to residents and leaders, including El Segundo,
Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lawndale and Wiseburn.
The Dec. 11 meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. in
Inglewood also will focus on Lennox, Culver
City and Baldwin Hills. The January orientation
and community event is open to members
from the cities of Hawthorne, Inglewood,
Huntington Park and Vernon, according to the
county elections office.
They envision opening the walk-in vote
centers near bus lines and workplaces to
encourage residents to participate in future
elections, according to spokeswoman Brenda
Duran with Los Angeles County Registrar of
Voters. A convenient place for voters could
be a storefront on a major traffic artery like
Hawthorne Boulevard. Not having a car is a
major hurdle to voting for many.
Residents should come to the community
meetings with suggestions about places that
meet the two main criteria: accessibility and
convenient use for voters, Duran said. Mail-in
balloting won’t be going away in 2020. The
local voter-friendly drive is happening around the
state where counties are tasked with removing
obstacles that make it difficult to vote for the
elderly, people with chronic health problems,
and those who rely on public transportation.
The Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters
and County Clerk laid the groundwork for the
coming voter-centered approach almost a decade
ago. Innovation with the election process has
its limits too. A private residence would not
qualify as a vote center because it’s not within
the county’s requirement that it be accessible
to a wide number of people, according to
Duran. Centers will open their doors 10 days
before the elections in 2020 and remain open
through Election Day.
The centers will stay open for 11 days,
from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., according to the county
voter project. There is a formula for how vote
centers will be scattered throughout big and
small cities. The math goes like this:
• 10 days before Election Day, one voting
center will be open for every 30,000 people
registered.
• Three days before Election Day, a vote
center will be in operation for every 7,500
eligible voters
• Even small communities with 1,000
residents or more are guaranteed at least one
voting center.
As examples, Hawthorne had 37,527 registered
voters for November’s election and
13,744 cast ballots, according to unofficial
results from the county. Lawndale had 13,956
residents registered and 4,891 participated.
Voter participation has dipped to some of the
lowest levels in history, says Dean Logan, who
holds the titles of registrar of voters and county
clerk. The modernization effort -- including the
remapping of polling places in the cities and
unincorporated areas -- will strain his office’s
resources, according to Logan. Lean budgets
means he’ll have to do more with fewer staff.
Successful testing of touch-screen voting
machine last year should usher in the digital
age for L.A. County. Instead of marking their
selections with pen and paper, voters in 2020
will enter their selections on touch-screen
ballot-marking devices. They will print out a
filled-out ballot to review and then feed the
ballot back into the machine to be stored and
counted, according to the designers.
The redesign began in 2009 and the county
has a budget of $15 million for software
development for the touch screens and scanners.
The designers used feedback from more
than 3,500 voters as the engineers built voting
machine prototypes that met the goals of being
secure from tampering and easy to learn
and use for voters of all ages and experience
with technology. •