Many Use the Ballot to Take Out Their Frustrations : Election: Expressions of disenchantment with the status quo abound at polling places and prompt some to choose long-shot presidential contenders.

Minutes after casting his ballot in Tuesday’s primary election, Stanley Berman of Reseda echoed many other discontented San Fernando Valley voters when he exclaimed: “Throw the rascals out!”

He appeared to speak for many of those encountered in a random sampling of Valley polling places, where many precinct officials reported a higher voter turnout than had been predicted.

Many of them said they had come, as Joan Mann of Sherman Oaks put it, “to shake things up.”

Precinct volunteers reported a slight increase in first-time voters who expressed disenchantment with the political landscape and black voters who were prompted to take part by the police beating of Rodney G. King and the ensuing trial and riots.

At a voting site in Lake View Terrace, near the site of the infamous videotaped beating, voter turnout was about 60%.

A number of Valley precincts reported turnouts of 30% to 40% or more.

The frustration many voiced about their ballot choices buoyed the fortunes of political long-shots: Ross Perot. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. Patrick Buchanan.

Some voters said they saw such candidates less as serious contenders than as vehicles for frustration with the status quo.

“I’m looking for an honest person, which is like Diogenes with his lantern,” said Mann, referring to the Greek stoic philosopher. “I would like to see honesty and integrity in government, which is a lot to ask, I guess.”

Jessie Simon and Taroe Lieberman both cast ballots in Sherman Oaks for Brown--not because they thought Brown had a shot at the nomination, but because they didn’t want to vote for any of the other candidates.

“Anything I can do to keep Bush out,” Simon said.

“I voted against Clinton,” Lieberman said.

For a few seconds Tuesday morning, Ron Young of Northridge felt a strange sensation of pride as the voting official slipped his ballot into the plastic box and announced, “Ron Young has voted.”

“It felt good, you know,” said Young, a first-time voter who held on to the pink stub of his Democratic ballot to show friends. “I never had the opportunity to vote before and for a while you feel real patriotic.”

Young, 20, said he took his responsibility seriously, reading up on candidates and asking questions of his instructors at Pierce College. But a friend, Andrew Klein, brushed off the election as an exercise in futility.

“I have no say in the whole thing,” said Klein, 19, of Northridge. “I didn’t really have a choice. I didn’t want any of them.”

“I’m not happy with the whole situation,” said Al Arsenault of Reseda. “I don’t think many people are.”

One of them was Debbie Fernandez of Tarzana, but she wanted her voice to be heard anyway. She, like Young, was a first-time voter. “It never seemed as important before,” she said. “But everything is so screwed up right now.”

Fernandez, an unemployed bookkeeper, said the solution does not lie with Perot, the Texas billionaire whose flirtations with the presidency have ignited the imaginations of voters.

“The last thing we need is another millionaire running the country,” she said.

“Billionaire,” someone said.

“Even worse.”

At some polling places, voters and election officials alike were somewhat confused by the choices offered.

At the Pacoima Recreation Center, election volunteer Mary Campo became confused while explaining to a voter the differences in the seven ballots laid out on the table in front of her. Ballots for Democrats, Republicans, the American Independent Party, the Peace and Freedom Party, the Libertarian Party and for non-partisan voters, those she understood. But Campo was a bit unclear on the Green Party.

“What is the Green Party?” she asked. “Are they the people who have green cards?”

Evelyn Drake, chief election worker at the Brainard Avenue Elementary School in Lake View Terrace, was also unable to explain the Green Party. “I don’t know if that green is for Greenpeace,” she said.

In the Antelope Valley, nearly 30 voters turned out at two precincts on Palmdale’s west side to find that county records had them registered under what they said were the wrong party affiliations.

“I was denied my right to vote,” said Shary Morelock, 50, who said she has been a registered Democrat for 29 years but was told by election officials that she had to vote as a Republican this year.

A misunderstanding between a couple and election officials at a polling site at Morningside School in San Fernando put a snag in the morning’s otherwise smooth operations. Election officials told a woman on crutches she could not vote because a list of registered voters showed that she was registered as an absentee voter.

“That’s wrong,” huffed her husband, a man with a white beard. “She’s never been absent in her life!”

He prevailed.

James McAdams, noting that the King beating took place less than half a mile from where he was casting his ballot in Lake View Terrace, said he believed he and many other blacks turned out specifically to vote for Charter Amendment F, the police reform proposition recommended by the Christopher Commission.

“I do think that because the Rodney King issue started just down the street, black voters here are frustrated and are voting for Amendment F,” he said.

At the other end of the Valley, at the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley station, many of the officers whose jobs would be affected by the amendment could not vote on it because they live outside the city limits.

Officer Dempsey, who declined to give his first name, said he was frustrated because his living in Palmdale precluded him from voting on the amendment. “When you wear a uniform, you can’t have an opinion,” he said. “When you can’t vote, you don’t have an opinion, so I guess I have no opinion on it.”

“But,” he quickly added, “I have many family members who voted it down.”

Times staff writers John Chandler and Tracey Kaplan contributed to this story.

PRIMARY RESULTS

Today’s election coverage can be found in the A section. Statewide and Valley-area races begin on A1, continuing on A3 and A14-19. National races are on A20-21. A listing of vote totals can be found on A14-16.