Nobody Votes in LA?

The New York Times recently panned the LA electorate for dismal 21% turnout in the March Mayoral primary, citing the fact that it was the lowest for an open Mayoral seat since 1978.  The final breakdown of votes now matched to the PDI database gives us better understanding of who among the electorate actually cast ballots:

(*ethniticites within the PDI database include birthplace, surname and ballot language requests.  African American voters are also identified through census information. ** LGBT/LGBT Supporter Households are determined by a number of factors, including registered Domestic Partners and reportable donations to LGBT organizations and PACs opposing Proposition 8.)

This Mayoral election, along with city council, school board and LA Community College District contests, did draw low turnout compared to the 2005 Villaraigosa contest, but as the table shows below, the city has seen a string of low-turnout elections.
Using the PDI Neighborhoods, we can see the highest rates of turnout in Century City, Mount Washington, and Chevoit Hills, each at over 30% turnout, and the lowest participation in Watts, University Park, Wilmington, The Palms and Southeast LA, each under 15%.
(click image to get a high resolution jpg or you can Download 11×17 PDF)

The biggest movers from 2011 Primary turnout were East Hollywood, Elysian Valley, Historic Filipinotown and Atwater Village, while turnout in University Park, Crenshaw, Eagle Rock and Los Feliz were among those that dipped the most compared to the prior election turnout.
While the City is 48% Latino, with a eligible voting age population Latino of 30%, their share of the electorate in low-turnout city elections hovers around 20%, only once reaching a high of 28% during the 2005 Villaraigosa Mayoral runoff.  In this election Latinos were 22% of the voters.
For the city contests over the past decade it is clear that Latino and White voters are the most commonly shifting portions of the electorate – as Latino turnout dips, White voters become more significant.
Asian Voters show the same type of fluctuation in turnout as Latinos and this year accounted for 8% of the votes cast.
Looking at all ethnicities by age the data tells a very interesting story – younger voters (at the left end of the table) are increasingly Latino but after the age of 24 the electorate is decidedly white.
This treatment of the data helps elaborate the unique diversity of each council district.  Two of the hottest races in the city are for council districts 9 and 13, each of which have very different demographics.  This can be seen in the ethnic/age composition of the turnout for those seats.

Council District 13 below has a Latino majority from the ages of 18-24 and then a White plurality until about 50 years old, at which time the electorate is fairly evenly mixed between Latinos, Whites and Asians.  In total, Latinos were 33% of this electorate with Whites at 39% and Asians at 17%.
Council District 9 shows the strength of the older African American voter but also the strong trend for a increasingly Latino district.  In total, African Americans were nearly 40% of the electorate in the Primary while Latinos reached 55%.
In terms of Partisanship, the City Elections have higher turnout for both parties, with Democrats holding 61% of this year’s voting population, and Republicans at just 21%.  The turnout can be described in partisan terms as two different electorates – those over 50 in which the dominant party is Democrat, followed by Republican and then a trailing non-partisan portion, and those under 50 where non-partisans slip into second place, above Republicans.
While the elections are non-partisan, both Parties out-perform their base registration, meaning that non-partisans are permanently under-performing by a wide margin.