Late night results for Malibu

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In a race where presidential candidates have shown little headroom either way, and where Malibu polls have been non-existent, candidates and citizens were left to speculate about results concerning local issues over a longer period Tuesday, because ballots were counted centrally rather than locally.

But city staff in Malibu were not necessarily unhappy about the circumstances because they were spared the task of counting ballots.

“We are only directing people to polling places,” said City Manager Christi Hogin on Monday.

And, in an age when technology expedites most tasks in a matter of nanoseconds, the County of Los Angeles, one of the most populated areas in the country, is trailing behind as it still uses antique machinery to count votes.

The county tabulates votes in Norwalk, using a votomatic punch card voting system purchased 32 years ago. This is the central count system for the entire county.

The County Registrar indicated that most ballots would not be counted before 11 p.m. on Tuesday night.

And circumstances delay local results even more if many absentee ballots are returned to the polling places late.

The City of Malibu has 13 precincts and 11 polling booths since a few precincts are consolidated. There are 9,003 registered voters out of a population of 13,000.

“One of the interesting things about Malibu politics is that there is no good polling, so you never know for sure until ballots are counted,” said Councilmember Jeff Jennings.

After polls close at 8 p.m., individual polling booths first balance the number of ballots with the number of voters signed in. This closing task takes about an hour, said City Clerk Virginia Bloom.

The precincts then bring their ballots and supplies to one of the 75 designated check-in centers located throughout the county, usually arriving between 9:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.

At this point, sheriff’s deputies receive and transport ballots from local voting centers to the Norwalk Registrar/Recorder/County Clerk’s headquarters via helicopter, for tabulation.

Following the arrival of the ballots, the registrar’s office posts preliminary results on a Web site at www.LAVOTE.net.

The very first numbers available to the public via the Web site are absentee ballots that are mailed in, and touch screen votes which were cast at nine such polling places throughout the county. These are generally good preliminary indicators of results that ensue, unless the race is a close one.

However, a surge in absentee voting may delay results even more for California elections this year.

In 1998, 24.7 percent of the population voted this way, and 617,231 of the 4.07 million registered voters in L.A. County have requested absentee ballots this year.