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2022 Election Results Reveal Manhattan Beach Voter Trends

Nov 22, 2022 04:32PM ● By Mb News Staff
As the November 8 voting results continue to trickle in for Manhattan Beach -- including new Tuesday numbers -- the winning vote-getters may not have changed, but some new trends have emerged.

First, overall Manhattan Beach voter turnout now stands at approximately 65.6%. It's likely to remain short of the last midterm elections in November 2018, where 74% of registered Manhattan Beach voters came out. However, it's higher than the June 2022 primary, when Measure A was on the ballot and voter turnout was only 52%.

Second, among registered Manhattan Beach voters, only 11.7% chose to vote in-person for this election, with the rest casting vote-by-mail (VBM) ballots or not voting at all. That's a drop from November 2020, when 15.3% of registered voters chose to vote in-person.

With the very latest count Tuesday, two weeks after Election Day, Manhattan Beach showed 17,350 votes counted so far on Measure MB (cannabis retail stores), the one race with the most ballots cast - and which MB News is using as a proxy for voter turnout. That figure puts overall voter turnout at 65.6% so far, with the count still growing with each update. 

Noted: The latest total represents an increase of 7,579 votes over the totals offered in the Election Night overnight returns, which had shown 9,771 votes on Measure MB. Of all the votes now in the mix, 44% were reported well after Election Day. 

Until this past Saturday's update, the county had continued to tally, on average, 500-700 new ballots from Manhattan Beach every day. But the Tuesday update suggests that pace may be slowing, with only 86 new ballots tallied. Counting in general will be ongoing through early December. 

Small, But Different, Turnout at Vote Centers


County data show a total of 3,085 votes cast up through and including Election Day in Manhattan Beach at "precincts," meaning at in-person voting centers. (Manhattan Beach voters could appear at any county vote center to cast a vote in person.) This is down from 4,135 in-person votes for the Nov. 2020 general election.

The figures reflect an overwhelming adoption of VBM voting by Manhattan Beach voters, not long after a tradition of voting at neighborhood centers, or even neighbors' garages, had been ingrained as the norm.

Curiously, among those who voted in person, the counts look different from the overall results.

Looking only at the results of those who voted in person, the top four vote-getters for City Council were:

Suzanne Hadley  1,260  
Amy Howorth         964
David Lesser          868   
Frank Chiella          835

(In full counts, Hadley is solidly in third place.)

Looking only at the results of those who voted in person, the school board race showed the the following totals:

Christy Barnes      1,332
Mike Welsh            1,308
John Uriostegui    1,295
Tina Shivpuri         1,146
Jen Fenton            1,124
Wysh Weinstein    1,023

(In full counts, the top three candidates are well behind, placing fourth through sixth.)

Meantime, 14,265 VBM ballots from Manhattan Beach voters have been counted so far. One downside to this vast preference for VBM is that the counting process is inherently much slower. In-person votes are tallied immediately and available overnight on Election Night. VBM envelopes must be hand-processed, with signatures checked, in vast batches at centralized county headquarters.

Nevertheless, the voting results released on election night (with Amy Howorth and David Lesser in the lead for City Council, and with Jen Fenton, Tina Shivpuri, and Wysh Weinstein in the lead for school board) have remained consistent even with so many more ballots rolling in.

VOTE TOTALS AS OF 3:11PM, 11/22/22

Here are the latest updated counts of Manhattan Beach votes for City Council and school board, from the L.A. County Registrar/Recorder.

According to LA County elections officials, these results should now include vote-by-mail ballots "cast through Election Day." Previous counts included vote-by-mail ballots returned before Election Day, and all ballots cast at a Vote Center, through Election Day.

These totals may not include all Vote By Mail ballots received on Election Day, Vote By Mail ballots that may arrive over up until 7 days after the election, Conditional Voter Registration Ballots, or Provisional Ballots.

Manhattan Beach City Council (2 seats)


Amy Howorth      7,499  (24.21%)   (+1,363 from 11/15 count)
David Lesser       7,184  (23.19%)   (+1,185)    
Suzanne Hadley  5,507  (17.78%)   (+915)
Frank Chiella       3,587  (11.58%)    (+605)
Rita Crabtree-Kampe   3,249  (10.49%)     (+595) 
Mark Burton        3,064  (9.89%)     (+529)
Stewart Fournier    886  (2.86%)     (+169 )

 

Manhattan Beach Unified School District Trustees (3 seats)


Jen Fenton            9,113  (21.45%)     (+1,616 from 11/15 count)
Tina Shivpuri         8,693   (20.46%)   (+1,532) 
Wysh Weinstein    8,172  (19.23%)   (+1,404) 
Christy Barnes      5,565  (13.10%)   (+931)
John Uriostegui    5,492  (12.92%)     (+936)
Mike Welsh           5,459  (12.85%)    (+920)


Measure MB (Allow Retail Cannabis Shops)

Yes                      3,979 (22.93%)   (+920 over 11/15 count) 

No                       13,371 (77.07%)   (+2,276) 


Measure V (Keep Existing Bans on Retail Cannabis)

Yes                      11,555 (67.55%)   (+1,999 over 11/15 count) 

No                         5,552 (32.45%)   (+1,078) 



DATA UPDATE NOTES

- LA County has updated its total of voters registered in Manhattan Beach for this election to 26,444, just about 100 above totals supplied previously.

- County data referenced above pertaining to in-person versus VBM voting percentages is readily available, but requires digging through extensive county-wide vote tallies in PDF documents to identify the proper pages and vote breakdowns. We've done the work for you.

- While MB News is using the Measure MB vote totals as a proxy for overall voter turnout, our figure will slightly understate the number of local ballots that were marked and returned. The county's newly detailed data from the first overnight vote counts shows that 10,093 Manhattan Beach voters returned a ballot, whereas only 9,771 voted on Measure MB, a dropoff of 322 (about 3%) who skipped it. More skipped Measure V, and not all local voters used all available votes for city council and school board.

- In our first report of results the day after the election, MB News estimated that we were then seeing only 50-55% of the totals to be expected. Soon after, we projected that there could be 7,400 or more votes outstanding. We noted that local political pros were suggesting to us that as few as 2,500-4,000 more votes might be pending at the time. By Nov. 22, 7,579 more votes had been counted.

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Historical Manhattan Beach Voter Turnout at Midterm Elections


It is typical for November general elections to see greater voter turnout than June primary elections.

Nov. 2022 - (counting)
June 2022 - 14,022, 52.08% of registered

Nov. 2018 - 18,760, 74.39%
June 2018 - 11,941, 47.69%

Nov. 2014 - 11,911, 47.88%
June 2014 - 7,147, 29.07%

Nov. 2010 - 16,497, 68.44%
June 2010 - 8,601, 35.63%

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Manhattan Beach Voter Registration Statistics

According to the Secretary of State's office, as of Oct. 19, 2022, voter registration in Manhattan Beach for this election totaled 26,336 voters, with the top three affiliations being:

Democratic: 42% (11,170)

Republican: 28% (7,399)

No Party Pref.: 24% (6,254)

Election-Day data showed a tiny increase in the number of registered voters to 26,444, but the county has not yet provided party breakdowns for that final figure.




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