Hosting Democracy : In Garages, Schools and Even a Halfway House, the Ballots Are Cast

“Jooooooooeeeeeeeeeeee! Like an alarm, the female voice rings out from Joe Keossaian’s garage, which on Tuesday served as polling place for his local precinct near Ventura Boulevard. Its sudden shrillness jerks the necks of startled voters huddled in their booths.

It is just after 7 a.m. and Keossaian, a 66-year-old Armenian immigrant, hangs a front-yard polling sign when he hears the cry. A smallish man in a button-up sweater, he makes a motion to cover his ears, then hurries up the driveway in quick scuffing steps to answer the call of his wife, Soussi.

Each election day for the last five years, the retired television repairman has given up his garage to provide a stage for the American electoral process, pushing aside power drills and heavy machinery to make way for half a dozen wooden polling booths.

Soussi, a former telephone worker, processes voters as they enter the garage. Considering the job her patriotic duty, she gets a little nervous at times. The moment something goes wrong--a misplaced name or missing form--Soussi’s response is immediate:

“Joooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Across the San Fernando Valley, voters reported Tuesday to makeshift polling places like Joe and Soussi Keossaian’s garage, filing into school auditoriums in Pacoima and Sherman Oaks, the showroom of a Burbank motorcycle dealer and a Laurel Canyon tile vendor.

At one Woodland Hills polling site, voters reached the home’s converted utility room through the garage, dodging workers still patching up damage from January’s temblor. At Billie Jean Keith’s home in Pacoima, residents drank coffee and shared political insights--as they have for about 30 years--at the garage known to locals as “Billie Jean’s place.”

And in North Hollywood, despite angry flyers circulated by local residents, hundreds of irked voters cautiously looked both ways before casting their ballots at a halfway house for paroled prison inmates.

“What’s all the ruckus about?” asked Claudia Ryan, manager of the Ryan Center. “Voters aren’t going to get hurt. It’s the same old stereotype, that murderers, rapists and thieves live here. People think somebody on parole from prison is always a Jeffrey Dahmer or a Charles Manson. Well, it’s just not true.”

At some polling places, voters lined up to await the 7 a.m. opening, anxious to do their part in electing a governor and U.S. senator and deciding ballot propositions like the controversial Proposition 187, which would deny social services to undocumented immigrants.

In heavily Latino Pacoima, morning voters trickled into Maclay Junior High School.

“Get serious,” said one clerk when asked if turnout was high following impassioned local protests against Prop. 187. “People just don’t vote anymore. There’s lots of excuses. Most think somebody else is gonna do it for them. That’s the long and the short of it.”

Still, voters showed up from Sylmar to Studio City, wearing everything from three-piece suits to jogging outfits. Some carried umbrellas against a morning drizzle, one even yanked along German shepherds on a leash. Many voters rushed in on their way to work, others used the vote to punctuate a leisurely morning walk. They used voting guides printed in everything from Spanish and English to Vietnamese, Tagalog, Korean and Chinese.

Most cast their votes alone. But not Sherman Oaks lawyer Richard Fisher: He brought along his 6-year-old son, Daniel, for help.

Dad called the endeavor a learning experience: “He’s voted with me ever since I carried him in here in diapers. It’s taught him that people have choices, that they can vote without being harassed or fearing for their lives, like they do in some countries.”

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Nearby, at the North Hollywood halfway house, people said they did vote in fear.

“Why couldn’t they find a more wholesome place--somewhere homier and safer like a school, instead of a halfway house,” said one worker at the Laurel Canyon Boulevard polling place. “Last time we were here, some guy locked himself in the bathroom, screaming like he was going to commit suicide. We ran outside with our purses to save our lives. Scary, very scary.”

Voter Laurie Baggao was ready to cast her vote in a flash. “I’ve already looked at my sample ballot and am ready to get in and out fast,” she said. “I don’t have a body guard, but I’ve got my running shoes on. No high heels today.”

Standing outside the halfway house, Jeffrey and Eve Eden were two voters who disagreed about a lot of things: One’s a liberal, the other more conservative. One voted for Prop. 187, the other, against it. They couldn’t even agree on the voting site.

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Getting into their car, he observed: “Why couldn’t they find a better place?”

She: “It’s good there is a place like this.”

For most voting clerks, Election Day is a thankless time. Many voters who show up at the wrong polling place blame them. Others want advice on how to read the ballots, even how to vote, which is illegal.

“And there’s always some self-appointed precinct watcher who’s looking over your shoulder, making sure everything is in order,” said Camelia Blitz, who worked at the Dixie Canyon Avenue Elementary School in Sherman Oaks. “If one thing’s out of place, they come in here kicking and screaming. I tell you. . . . “

At Billie Jean’s polling place in Pacoima, the only person looking over anybody’s shoulder was her cocker spaniel Chakak--on hand, his owner joked, to guard against voter fraud.

Since the mid-1960s, voters in this largely Democratic area have come to Billie Jean Keith’s garage to cast votes for politicians and their newfangled ideas, running clear back to Lyndon Johnson. She’s seen babies born, kids grow old enough to vote and even have kids of their own.

“People get older,” she says. “But they’re loyal. They don’t change parties in this neighborhood. It’s Democratic, true and blue.”

In fact, out of 1,200 registered voters there, only six are Republican. The last time some conservative type came calling at Billie Jean’s polling place, setting up an old ironing board across the street to use as a pulpit as he preached to voters, folks ran him off, she said.

“In this neighborhood, people believe a vote for the Democrats means a better life,” she said. “When people vote, they might not even understand the issue, but if there’s a Democrat involved, they’ll vote for him.”

Watching two women with three baby strollers arrive at the garage, the 62-year-old dry cleaning shop owner says running a polling place has taught her about both people and politics.

“If I’m around another 17 years, I’m going to see all three of those babies take up the ballot,” she said. “And I’m not going anywhere--at least until the good Lord says ‘Billie Jean, come on home!’ ”

Back at Joe Keossaian’s garage, things are going smoothly. As he nervously paces the driveway outside, he hears the sound that voters have come to associate with Election Day at the Keossaian house:

“Joooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”