Decision ’93 / Los Angeles County Elections : Getting Out the Vote

The outcome of the mayoral election is expected to hinge on voter turnout. With that in mind, campaigns for both City Councilman Michael Woo and businessman Richard Riordan will mount extensive efforts to get their supporters to the polls June 8.

* PHONES: Riordan volunteers at seven phone banks around Los Angeles will be calling 7,000 probable voters every night between now and Election Day. The Police Protective League, the rank-and-file officers union that is supporting Riordan, recently opened its phone banks and has been making up to 2,000 calls a day.

The Woo campaign plans to call more than 100,000 households--a combination of loyalists and undecided voters--before Election Day, then re-contact as many homes as possible June 8. Several other groups will mount independent phone campaigns, which may overlap in part with the Woo campaign’s calls. The California Democratic Party had planned to call up to 50,000 Democratic households from five phone banks, but its plans have been curtailed temporarily by a court order obtained by the state Republican Party. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO has set a goal of phoning more than half of the 115,000 union members in the city who are registered to vote. All 25,000 members of the United Teachers-Los Angeles will be phoned and asked to vote for Woo. Environmental groups are also pitching in, with the California League of Conservation Voters, for example, providing 122 volunteers to staff Woo phone banks.

* MAIL: The Riordan campaign has been sending absentee voter applications to many homes; it is not known how many are being returned to election officials. The police union will send out three mailers of its own.

Absentee voter applications from the Woo campaign have gone to 50,000 registered voters. The county labor federation has sent absentee ballot applications to another 92,000 union households. The teachers union newspaper has urged a vote for Woo.

* DOOR-TO-DOOR: One thousand Riordan volunteers have already promised to visit key voters on Election Day and more are expected by then. Police volunteers will also be walking precincts.

Many of the 600 Woo volunteers now working on phone banks will be diverted to walk precincts on Election Day.

* TRANSPORTATION: A thousand Riordan volunteers will be helping to take the disabled and others to the polls, and will track voting in key precincts.

The Woo campaign will run a non-polluting fleet of electric cars to help voters who cannot get to the polls on their own.

* OTHER: Twenty-seven sound trucks will broadcast pro-Woo messages in high-density urban neighborhoods.