Long Beach polling place runs out of ballots during evening voting

Some Long Beach voters said their polling place ran out of city ballots Tuesday evening.

At Fire Station 14 in the Alamitos Heights neighborhood, election inspector Carina Lister said a steady stream of voters had been coming in all day.

“There hasn’t been a lull at all,” Lister said.

Shortly after 7 p.m., with less than an hour left before polls closed, the precinct ran out of city ballots. At least one voter was asked to vote at a neighboring precinct.

Sharon Dezutti also arrived after ballots ran out and took her chances writing down her choices on a slip of paper as poll workers suggested, crossing her fingers that officials would actually count it.

“It’s really confusing,” said Dezutti, 67, a retired school administrator, adding that she’s never before encountered such a problem in more than 30 years of voting in Long Beach.

“I’m glad there seems to be a great turnout, but I’m a little angry this happened.”

Long Beach City Clerk Larry Herrera said a fresh supply of ballots was delivered to the polling station within about half an hour.