Local News in Brief : Change in Election Date

Disappointed by the 15% turnout in last week’s election, the Torrance City Council agreed to have a committee consider a ballot measure to change the date of the municipal election from March to April.

Councilman Bill Applegate suggested that a referendum be placed on the November ballot to change the date to save money and possibly boost voter turnout.

Applegate expressed dismay that 85 out of 100 registered voters stayed home rather than cast ballots in the recent election. “It’s actually shameful when you look at the percentage of voter turnout,” Applegate said.

City Clerk Donald Wilson told the council that moving the election to April, when most cities in Los Angeles County hold local elections, would not save money, as first thought.

“There would be no significant savings in April,” Wilson said.

Wilson’s chief deputy, Dora Hong, said savings would occur only if the city election were consolidated with the county and state election in June.

“Changing our city election to April would have no cost benefit and could possibly hamper our election administration,” said Hong, who said she wanted to clarify comments attributed to her in The Times last week.

“There are no consolidated services provided by the county that would be shared. We would still have to pay for our sample ballots, election workers, precincts polls, postage, ballots, voting supplies,” she said.