THE MUNICIPAL PRIMARY : L.A. Election Is Dullsville at Precincts as Few Turn Out

By 7 a.m. Tuesday, the Wileys, mother and daughter, and their neighbors, also a mother and daughter, were prepared for a special occasion.

They sat in a row behind a folding table in their room at the Elegant Manor Social Center, a half-timbered mansion on West Adams Boulevard available for weddings and dances. Hot coffee, peanuts and corn chips had been set out. An American flag hung outside the door.

The four women were giving an election. But none of the guests had appeared.

“We had nothing else to do,” said Gwen Wiley (the daughter). “So we said, ‘We might as well vote.’ ”

Five hours later, only 32 more of the precinct’s 300 voters had come by. Wiley looked at her mother Ruth’s watch and yawned.

“High noon,” she said. “Eight more hours to go.”

Across the city, the scene was similarly quiet in the school auditoriums and auto dealerships, churches and synagogues, fraternity houses, garages and sun porches that become polling places on Election Day.

Few Los Angeles residents were lured by the opportunity to vote for mayor, city attorney and representatives for City Council, school and community college boards or to decide on six ballot propositions. By 7 p.m., only 18.3% of the voters in a city clerk’s sampling of 75 precincts had cast ballots.

Precinct judges and inspectors said municipal elections always have lighter turnouts than elections with federal and state races on the ballot. But even taking that into account, the showing was skimpy.

Some election workers blamed the mist and drizzle, others the lack of excitement in the various contests.

Precinct judge Barbara Grunner blamed the candidates themselves.

“It’s their fault,” she said as she sat in front of a gold 1934 Oldsmobile at a Mission Hills car showroom and watched four empty cardboard polling booths. “They didn’t have debates. A lot of issues could have been brought up.”

Even some of the precinct workers decided not to vote.

“I’m not interested in this,” said Melanie Mullins, a 26-year-old precinct judge at Charles Maclay Junior High School in Pacoima. “I’m just not.”

Many of the voters who did arrive at the polls said they came to show their reverence for the electoral process.

Joe Harris, for example, pulled his right ear forward to reveal a small, thin scar.

“I came because of this,” he said.

A Nashville, Tenn., policeman’s club inflicted the scar in 1963 when Harris was registering blacks to vote, he said. As soon as Harris was old enough to vote in 1964, he did so. He is 47 now, and “I haven’t missed one since,” he said outside the Mid-Wilshire wedding chapel that served as his precinct Tuesday.

Willie Cook, a retired city street maintenance worker, likewise votes every time he is eligible.

“I think it’s my duty as a citizen,” he said.

He tries to be first at his Pacoima precinct every year. This time, he was late: No. 6. But as in the past, he saved his stub to carry with him for a while and then add to the collection in his dresser drawer.

Cora Lee Johnson votes out of habit. When she lived in Kansas City decades ago, she learned to cast a ballot each election “because if you didn’t vote, they’d vote your name for you.” She can remember people approaching the polls there and forgetting who they were supposed to be.

In some cases, it was discontent that drew voters to the polls.

“I’m tired of Tom Bradley and all of his friends,” said Lindy Willingham, a Sherman Oaks free-lance paralegal. “. . . I think that the city’s going to pot. The other issues are no big deal.”

She said she voted for former county Supervisor Baxter Ward for mayor over Bradley.

Diana Zajac, who voted near the Westside Pavilion in Rancho Park, said she wanted Laura Lake to replace Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky. Lake had attacked Yaroslavsky for letting the shopping center and other developments be built in his 5th District.

“I think Zev’s a little burned out,” Zajac said.

Still, the loyalists were out. Jim Burley, who voted at Elegant Manor, said he remembers when Bradley was a police officer on the beat.

“I’ve been knowing him a long time,” Burley, 59, said. “It’s true he hasn’t done much for his people, but we don’t want Nate Holden. He was up north (in Sacramento as a state senator) for years, and he didn’t do nothing either.”

Mix-ups made the day more exciting at about half a dozen precincts that opened late, said Joseph Giles, who heads the city clerk’s election division. At a Hollywood elementary school, voters said about 45 people were turned away because the precinct inspector was home sick. After angry residents called City Hall to complain, the site opened at 11 a.m. Another precinct in a private home was late opening because the owner was on vacation.

At one polling place, in a Tarzana garage, election workers were elated when more than 30% of their voters cast ballots.

“What you have here is a very civic-minded area,” said Manny Bernstein, who owns the precinct site, “except when it comes to volunteering your garage for the vote. Nobody else would do it.”

But at most of the 2,730 polling stations, the day was unrelievedly dull.

At the Riddick Youth Center in Rancho Park, precinct workers ate oatmeal cookies baked by a precinct judge’s wife. At Tete A Tete Hair & Nails in Sherman Oaks, the refreshments were pastries and coffee, and the entertainment was provided by precinct judge Lloyd Zimmer’s two children, who visited along with a friend.

Brenda Richards at Maclay came prepared with three mystery novels, a jug of water and a pack of cigarettes.

“We’ll have plenty of time to do whatever we want,” she said. “Shop, knit, crochet, give birth to a baby. It’s a fun day.”

Della R. Avila, a precinct judge in her home near USC, was not so sanguine. Only the day before, she had received a certificate from the county registrar-recorder’s office for her 30 years of election work. When the polls closed at 8 p.m., only 31 people in her precinct--out of 880 registered--had voted.

“It took a minute to count the votes,” she said. “We even double-checked.”

Also contributing to Los Angeles election coverage were Roxane Arnold, Glenn F. Bunting, Alan Citron, David Colker, Alma Cook, Sam Enriquez, Paul Feldman, Gabe Fuentes, Larry Gordon, Charisse Jones, Tracey Kaplan, Amy Louise Kazmin, Daryl Kelley, Alan C. Miller, John Mitchell, Frederick M. Muir, Dean Murphy, George Ramos, Cecilia Rasmussen, Amy Pyle, Louis Sahagun, Richard Simon, George Stein, Jill Stewart and Ginger Thompson.