Opinion: Election night wonder

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It’s the most magical place on the best night of the year, at least if you think like a 10-year-old boy who loves trucks, helicopters, skip loaders, shiny equipment and factory-like assembly lines. Third floor of Piper Tech, also known as the Erwin C. Piper Technical Building, the huge City of Los Angeles plant where the ballots are delivered after the polls close on city election days. Most people will never understand. The rest of us can’t get enough of this stuff.

City cars pull up to the loading dock, where a row of nearly a dozen women--girls, really, most looking like they’re just out of high school--sit at tables with clipboards and checklists. They check items off as tables, chairs and other equipment from 2,126 precincts are unloaded in the night by people looking like kids running a car wash fund raiser for drill team. But all attitudes shift and faces change when a car pulls up with handsome brown canvas bags, marked ‘Property of Los Angeles City Clerk, Election Division.’ Ballots. The high schoolers suddenly turn into Brinks guards handling bags of cash and gold bullion.

Soon a helicopter lands, bringing more ballots from the far reaches of the Valley, or maybe San Pedro. The two copters that make multiple ballot flights this evening are flown by Fire Department pilots, who appreciate the chance to log some hours and keep in practice. There’s no fog tonight, so no exasperating delays like there were two years ago in the mayoral primary.

Inside, under factory lights, equipment is passed up conveyor belts while in another huge room, ballots are inspected. Counting takes place in yet another room, in the back. Security officers are everywhere, but the atmosphere is festive.

Voting was light and ballots are relatively few, but that doesn’t mean this was an uncomplicated election. Voting for school board was handled not just by Los Angeles, but by many of the other cities that are part of LAUSD and have their own elections today. Those cities, like South Gate, that have consolidated their elections with L.A., tabulate their own ballots and fax data on the school board portion to the city clerk. Some cities, like Rosemead, are within the Community College District boundary but did not consolidate their election, so voters in those cities’ precincts voted twice--once with a city ballot, a second time with a college ballot. Getting a final toll for the school board, the community college board or Charter Amendment L (which affects the school board) means adding up separate results from separate elections run by about a dozen cities.

From the top of Piper Tech come some of the best views of the Los Angeles. The freeway is below, the lights of downtown are close by, and happy election workers (earning $80 to $100 for one 15-hour day, on top of the $25 they got for attending training) are bringing in the ballots. And on the bottom floors, enough fire trucks undergoing repair, buses being washed, and fleets of cars and trucks of all types to keep a huge city running.