If you haven't voted yet, I hope you do and tell a few other people to do the same. Here are some things to know, use, watch and follow tonight.
Find your polling place. It might have moved, or maybe you did, and you're not sure where to go. Much about lavote.net is unpleasant, but their polling place locator is quick and easy. Polls close at 8pm.
Live and local television. For the fourth time since 2008, COC Cougar News and SCVTV are doing a live election show. It runs from 8pm to 11pm and it will be packed with specials, interviews, live reports and election results. They also had the crazy idea of inviting me in for some live election analysis, which I'm really looking forward to. You can watch SCVTV on Time Warner Channel 20, AT&T UVerse Channel 99, or you can stream online here (or here).
Races to watch. Locally, the big elections of the night are Measure S (digital billboards) and the 25th Congressional race (Knight and Strickland). The Castaic Lake Water Agency also has a few seats up for election with active challengers, and the Saugus USD has a bond (Measure EE) on the ballot. And for those of us in the 36th Assembly District (you'd know it by the dozens of mailers), there's a very competitive and expensive race between incumbent Steve Fox (D) and Tom Lackey (R).
Statewide, Democrats lead comfortably in the polls for most offices, but the nonpartisan Superintendent of Public Instruction race is tight. Propositions typically don't poll reliably, but the measures getting heavy interest are 1, 45, 46 and 47.
Still confused by the Props? The biannual Proposition Song is a favorite. Check it out.
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Follow the numbers. If you want election results, don't bother checking until 8, and make sure you check the right site for the right election. For Measures S and EE, the CLWA seats (At-large, Div1, Div2), and the 36th AD, go to the LA County Registrar of Voters. Since they're spread over two counties, use the Secretary of State's website for the CA25 and AD38 (Wilk/Fuentes) races. The SoS is also the place to go for results for any statewide office or ballot measure. (click on each link to go directly to that race)
Follow the chatter. Twitter isn't what it used to be, but it can be a lot of fun on nights like this. I encourage everyone to use the simple hashtag #SCV tonight to tweet and follow tweets about elections of local importance, and also use #CA25 for the Congressional race. I'll be tweeting sporadically at @SCVTweets and you should also check these locals: @PerryRSmith, @IHeartSCV, @LukeMMoney, @coc_cougarnews.
This doesn't tell the whole story, necessarily. For example 2012 wasn't much different than 2010, even though it had much higher turnout overall. Some voters might have been waiting longer to decide, or there might be a spike in poll voting. But given the surprisingly dismal turnout in this year's primary election, it's probably an indication that we're set to have very low turnout.
If you want to explore more, here's a link to their data, mapped by zip code. It's really neat.
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What does this mean for Measure S? Knight and Strickland?The city return rate is two points higher than the average of unincorporated SCV zip codes, which is similar to 2010. It would seem that there is no apparent spike in turnout due to the local measure (yet).
In SCV and Simi Valley, the electorate is also pretty similar to previous years, so there's no unusual skew towards Republicans or Democrats. It's a different story in the Antelope Valley, where some ZIP codes have seen the Democrats' share jump by more than 10%. If Tony Strickland's strategy of targeting Democrats by pointing to Steve Knight's far-right leanings pays off, this could be very good news for Strickland. Otherwise, there isn't much the data can tell us right now.
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