New district lines may misrepresent voters
The next time the citizens of Long Beach will be able to vote in the midterm elections will be June 7, 2022.
The offices up for election are Mayor, City Attorney, City Auditor, City Prosecutor, and Council Districts 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 according to the candidate’s page on longbeach.gov.
Long Beach is currently in the process of redrawing district lines after the results of the 2020 Census. Redrawing district lines is based on population increase or decrease, and it helps determine the voting power of each district.
During the 2020 Census, a question was added by the direction of the Trump administration about citizenship status. The question asked if the person participating in the census was a current U.S. citizen.
This question may have deterred residents from participating in the census if they were not registered as a U.S. citizen. The Cambodian and central Long Beach district saw a large decrease of over 2,000 residents according to the census.
Although some residents may not have participated in the census, a number of voters still came out to the most recent election.
The current number of registered voters from each district is 261,211 according to a page on the city’s main website. Out of these registered voters, only 106,717 cast their ballots in the gubernatorial recall election.
Overall the recall attempt of Governor Gavin Newsom was defeated by California voters by a large margin. Over 75,000 Long Beach voters chose to stop the recall, while around 30,000 residents voted to recall the governor.
If the 2020 Census does not reflect the actual population of each district, this could misrepresent the voters and affect upcoming elections.
Citizens have plenty of time to register to vote in next year’s election, but we have yet to see how the new district lines will affect the voting power of each district.
By Joshua Villas
Photo Credit : Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune
Sources
https://www.longbeach.gov/cityclerk/elections/candidates/