Arnold’s day

Deepa Bharath and June Casagrande

Locals took their place in long lines at schools, churches and other

polling places Tuesday, a small part of the rush of voters seeking to

make their voices heard in Sacramento.

“I feel that [Gov.] Gray Davis isn’t qualified to be in his

position,” said Ben Gajek, a Newport Beach resident who cast his

recall ballot at Andersen Elementary School on Tuesday morning. “I

think he lacks the ability to govern.”

Voting at Andersen got off to a rocky start Tuesday morning as

large numbers of voters flooded the school’s multipurpose room.

“The level of confusion at the polling location at Andersen School

in Newport Beach this morning was alarming,” resident Katherine

Darmer reported. “There was a prevailing sense of chaos and

confusion.”

The long lines were mainly due to the greatly reduced number of

polling places used in special elections. During a major election,

about 1,700 polling places are open in Orange County. On Tuesday,

there were only 476 for the recall election of Davis, his possible

replacement by 135 candidates and two ballot measures.

As of 10:30 p.m., the recall of Davis was ahead with 55.8% of the

vote statewide and almost 72% in Orange County. Arnold Schwarzenegger

was leading the race to replace Davis, at 49.4%, with 64% in Orange

County.

By 9 p.m., most major news outlets were declaring the recall a

success and Schwarzenegger the winner. Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz

Bustamante had conceded, carrying just 30% of the vote.

Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock had 12% of the vote and

Laguna Beach resident Peter Ueberroth, who dropped out of the race

nearly a month ago, had 0.5%.

Newport Beach had only 14 polling places, where workers scrambled

to accommodate the masses. One Andersen volunteer reported that,

between 7 and 11:30 a.m., she had personally processed between 300

and 400 voters, and she was just one of about a dozen volunteers

sitting at a long table lining the school’s large multipurpose room.

Hanging thick in the air at such Newport Mesa polling places was a

strong sense of discontent with the current government. But instead

of stagnating into cynicism, this discontent mobilized locals to get

to the polls.

“Absolutely your vote counts,” resident Bonnie Ghani-Banki said.

“It’s definitely worth it.”

Ghani-Banki, too, said she turned out to support the recall. As

did John Martino, also of Newport Beach.

“I’m here because I want to get Gray Davis out,” Martino said.

By the end of the day, the lines had not dissipated much. At least

60 people were lined up outside Costa Mesa City Hall, ballot in hand

at about 7:30 p.m.

Margie Taylor said she was “pleasantly surprised” at the large

turnout.

“It’s nice to know people bothered to show up although it’s late,”

she said. “It shows people are interested in this election.”

Sharon Bowman said she didn’t even think this many people were

interested in politics any more, let alone this election.

“No, I didn’t expect this turnout,” she said. “But that said, this

recall is interesting because it comes so soon after an election.”

Bowman didn’t want to say who she was going to vote for, but said

she believes that California “must get its priorities straight.”

“We need to set out priorities on where money is spent and how it

is spent,” she said.

Justin Schultz, who said he was late because he had just gotten

off work, said he was going to cast his vote for Schwarzenegger

because he has proven himself to be a successful man.

“He has power and money,” he said. “He can do the job.”

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes. com.

JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport. She may

be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at

june.casagrande@latimes.com.