Venetians are now wired for elections. After doing a stunning job in the Venice Neighborhood Council election, Venetians hopefully will be out in force in the National election this fall. And next year is the City election.
Marie Hammond has supplied the Venice precincts and the voting history for the 2013 CD11 election.
“For a population of 40,000, it looks like about 1/8 of Venice actually voted in the March 2013 election for council person,” wrote Hammond. “Venice does have some power in elections, but only 1/8 of voters actually got out and voted for a council person. Venice votes accounted for about 14 percent of the March 2013 CD11 election.”
Thank you for this. The raw Venice turnout for an open seat on the LA City Council was anemic and in par with the citywide results. But consider this: 5,055 people voted in the council election in Venice while nearly 2,800 voted in the VNC elections last week! While the VNC election did not have a spirited race for president, the other positions drew much interest. Had Lydia Ponce ran for CO she would have easily won one of the thirteen board seats. Bonin received 63% of the Venice vote against, unknown and underfunded, first time candidates. Bonin has been a fixture in city government for 8 years and time served at the federal level as well. Because no one really knew if Rosendahl was going to run for reelection, the race was frozen and all the Rosendahl support went directly to Bonin, his chief of staff effectively ending the race before it started. Plus, it helps to raise about $500,000 while his opponents collectively didn’t raise $100,000 for a 5-1 dollar advantage. Bonin received slightly over 60% in a field of first-time candidates with -0- name recognition.