Voters in the Valley have spoken and after four weeks of polling, ten Neighborhood Councils experienced historic high voter turnout, resulting in a valley-wide increase in voters of 58.9% over 2012.
The 34 Neighborhood Councils in the Valley were divided into four regions, providing an opportunity for regional outreach strategies that included newspaper advertisements, direct mail, robo-calling, social media, public events, and candidate events that created face-to-face opportunities for the voters.
The dust hasn’t quite settled and there are still some challenges to resolve, some provisional ballots to count, and some canvass of votes to audit, but overall, it’s pretty clear, the Neighborhood Councils in the Valley took Mayor Garcetti’s challenge to heart.
During the 2013 Congress of Neighborhoods, Mayor Garcetti challenged the LA’s councils to engage their communities and to get out the vote. He took it one step further and offered to swear in the Neighborhood Council with the greatest improvement.
It worked!
So far, Lake Balboa has the greatest improvement by percentage with a 247% increase over 2012, and Porter Ranch has the greatest improvement by number with an increase of 461 voters over 2012.