Election day is here, which means it’s the final chance to cast your ballot for the midterm election.
Early voting options have allowed more than 5.5 million Californians to cast their ballot ahead of election day, according to Political Data Intelligence, voter data analysis software.
However, with more than 23 million registered voters in the state, there are still nearly 18 million people who potentially could head to the polls, which could translate to long lines at polling places and voting centers.
You can avoid long wait times. Here’s how to do that, plus a few other helpful tips on election day.
How to avoid long lines at the polls
On election day, voting and polling centers are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
By entering your address, the locator will create a list of voting centers that are less than a mile away or as far as 10 miles.
Included with the vote center address is how long the current wait time is at that specific location.
The wait times are color coded as follows:
Dark green: 15 minutes or less
Light green: 16 to 30 minutes
Yellow: 31 to 45 minutes
Orange: 46 to 60 minutes
Red: More than 1 hour
Blue: Wait time unavailable
I’m at a vote center but left my ballot at home
You can request a provisional ballot at any polling place in the county in which you are registered to vote.
A provisional ballot is a regular ballot that is placed in a special envelope prior to being put in the ballot box.
It’s counted once election officials verify that you are a registered voter in that county and haven’t already voted in the election.
How to participate in ‘curbside voting’ for registered voters with disabilities
All polling places and voting centers are required to be accessible to voters with disabilities and will have accessible voting machines.
Any voter who cannot reach the voting area at the center because of architectural barriers or physical limitations may request to vote curbside — whether the voter is physically on the curb or in their car.
There is a sign posted outside of every vote center with a phone number to call an election worker who will bring a ballot to the voter, according to the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk.
I forgot my check-in code for in-person voting
Los Angeles County election officials say you can check in at a voting center by scanning your “quick check-in code” — a number that verifies your voter registration.
Your unique code can be found on your mailed sample ballot and vote center postcard. Take either of those hard copies to the vote center.
If you forgot the hard copies, you can find the code online. You retrieve it by verifying your voter registration here. You’ll need to input your last name, birth date, the house number of your residential address and your ZIP Code.
For assistance call, (800) 815-2666, Option 2.
How late is too late to vote at the polls on election night?
In California, any voter who is in line at 8 p.m. when the polls are scheduled to close is allowed to vote, according to the secretary of state.
If there is a line when the polls close, a poll worker stands at the back of the line to let people who arrive after 8 p.m. know that the polls have closed.
Any voter who arrives after the polls have closed may not be allowed to vote, even if voters who were in line to vote before the polls closed are in the process of voting.
There are many metrics by which to measure the success of “Oh, Mary!,” the Tony Award-winning play that has taken the stage by storm. And here’s a new one: Effusive hype and high ticket demand has resulted in Center Theatre Group booking the show for its 2028 60th anniversary season even before its national touring production hits the Ahmanson Theatre on Nov. 10.
As evidenced by Tuesday’s announcement, the current tour, starring drag queen Alaska Thunderf— is set to arrive in L.A. next week with sky-high expectations. Ironically, director Sam Pinkleton originally resisted the idea of a tour, feeling the show might lose some of its charm on the road.
“I was convinced it was a bad idea,” Pinkleton said with a laugh during a recent interview. “But when we went to Broadway, I also thought that was a terrible idea, and I was absolutely wrong.” The director was originally concerned the scrappy little show with a cast of five wouldn’t play as well in larger houses. “But seeing how well it works on Broadway, I think it’s actually better than in the small room. It’s not a play I would call subtle; it really fills a room. So that gave me a lot of confidence about a national tour.”
Written by and originally starring Cole Escola, “Oh, Mary!” is a revisionist take on former First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln’s life in the days leading to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Historical accuracy be damned, the show presents Mary as a wannabe star repressed by her closeted husband. Premiering off-Broadway in February 2024 and set to run six weeks, the show was given multiple extensions before transferring to Broadway, where it won Tony Awards for Escola’s performance and Pinkleton’s directing. Escola was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in drama that same year.
Cole Escola and James Scully in “Oh, Mary!” on Broadway. Many actors have since taken on the role of Mary Todd Lincoln.
(Emilio Madrid)
But “Oh, Mary!” has achieved much more than gold statues and box office receipts — it’s a genuine pop-culture phenomenon, a familiar meme and a show beloved by seemingly all demographics.
“I think a turning point was early in the run when Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner and Sally Field all came together,” Pinkleton said. “We were all like, ‘What is happening?’”
Other notable audience members, including Madonna and Michelle Obama, followed, while actors such as Maya Rudolph, Bowen Yang and Tituss Burgess signed up to don Mary’s ringlet wig as the Broadway run stretched on. “It’s wild to think that tonight, you can see it in three different places,” says Pinkleton, referring to the productions in New York, London and the national tour.
If the tour’s leading lady is feeling any pressure, she’s not showing it. Alaska admits that even she was skeptical of the show’s advance hype. “I kept hearing, ‘Oh, you have to see this play, this play is so good,’” she recalled during a Zoom interview from the show’s San Francisco stop. “And I thought, ‘How good can a play be? What is everyone talking about?’”
But the moment she saw it, she understood. “I was immediately enamored, I was hooked.”
“Oh, Mary!” star Alaska says the show feels written for her, even thought she knows it’s not.
(Gabriela Hasbun / For The Times)
When it came time to cast the tour, Pinkleton immediately thought of Alaska, known to most audiences as the winner of the second season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars.” Pinkleton had worked with her before, most notably in the 2021 production of the Go-Go’s musical “Head Over Heels” at the Pasadena Playhouse. “I knew for a fact that Alaska could do this in her sleep,” he said. “As the kids say, I have receipts. She’s the real thing and she was made for this.”
Following an early Zoom work session, Alaska was on board. “I feel like it was written for me, but I know it wasn’t,” she said. “And that’s a testament to Cole writing something very true and anchored in real emotion. I think anyone who has ever felt underestimated or misunderstood or overlooked can really identify with this role.”
In many ways, the joy of playing Mary is that different actors bring different aspects and personality nuances to the role. “It’s a big, juicy part that works in the hands of radically different people,” Pinkleton said.
Asked what she feels she brings to the role, Alaska said she didn’t go in thinking about how to make it her own. “I really just approached it truthfully,” she said, noting that while the show is a comedy, the circumstances Mary finds herself in are genuinely tragic, and she wanted to be true to that. “This isn’t jokey to me — it’s really serious, intense and high-stakes. I wanted to do it like an Ibsen play or Shakespeare.”
The show doesn’t play like a tragedy, however. It’s a roller coaster ride from the start, and Pinkleton said he always wants the audience to have a great time.
“Oh, Mary!” star Alaska puts on makeup backstage at the Curran Theatre during the San Francisco stop of the show’s national tour.
(Gabriela Hasbun / For The Times)
“I know there’s a lot of amazing theater being made about various traumas, but I can only control my corner of things and I just feel that most of us have had a bad day in one way or another,” he said. “And it would be awesome if our time at the theater was joyous. And I take that really, really seriously.”
Both director and star are well aware of the expectations that come with a show so beloved and discussed. “I try not to think about it,” said Alaska. “I just trust in the show being so beautifully constructed and it truly has something for everyone, whoever you are.”
For his part, Pinkleton said with a laugh, “There’s definitely some element for me of, ‘Like, it’s just a play, calm down.’” But part of maintaining its heart and charm is remembering that at its core, “it’s kind of a small operation.”
“It was made with a really hands-on approach by a very small group of people who cared a lot and that spirit has remained even as we’ve scaled it up,” Pinkleton said. It hasn’t been easy work; Pinkleton credits several people for their contributions, particularly the tour’s associate director Sunny Min-Sook Hitt, who occupied the same role during the original production. “It’s taken a lot of worthwhile work to keep it what it is. There’s just not a world where ‘Oh, Mary!’ can turn into ‘Jersey Boys,’” Pinkleton said. The national tour is already selling out houses across the country and receiving a rapturous response. “Every night has a different energy and the audience is definitely a part of the show,” Alaska said. “In San Diego, we were in a 3,000-person theater, we’ve never played one that size. It felt like the stadium version of ‘Oh, Mary!’”
Pinkleton said he makes “a lot of big, gay shows” and people have asked him how he thinks “Oh, Mary!” will play in smaller cities. “Honestly, I was a weird, loud, gay kid in Richmond, Virginia, and I’m excited to bring it to places that might not get this kind of thing,” he noted. And sometimes silly comedies can be the most meaningful, particularly to marginalized communities. “It’s meaningful that there will be some people for whom ‘Oh, Mary!’ is also a kind of a life raft.”
‘Oh, Mary!’
Where: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles
When: Nov. 10 to Dec. 6. Check website for days and times.
A FedEx truck parked near the sprawling grading center of Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) in Santa Ana was robbed a week ago of trading cards worth nearly $1 million, the Santa Ana Police Department said.
PSA reported to police that two stolen pallets of about 100 packages of cards apiece had an approximate value of $963,000. About 50 packages from a third pallet were also stolen, and their value was still being calculated as of Tuesday morning.
The cards had been sent from all over the country to PSA to be graded, a necessary step for collectors in authenticating their wares. Items included primarily sports cards and Pokémon cards, as well as one-of-one pieces. The cards had been graded and were set to be returned to their owners when they were stolen.
The FedEx driver left the vehicle, which was parked near PSA’s shipping and receiving address at 1610 E. St. Andrew Place, for an hour to 90 minutes, police said. The truck lock was busted and packages stolen while he was away.
“It remains an open case,” Santa Ana police spokesperson Natalie Garcia told NBC News, “and we have not made any arrests or recovered any stolen goods.”
PSA said it was taking measures to prevent the stolen cards from circulating through the usual venues and marketplaces while also reimbursing card owners for at least a portion of their losses. Trading cards and other collectibles are verified and assigned condition grades by PSA, which establishes their value and protects them by assigning serial numbers and certification information. PSA said it has deactivated the certificates tied to the stolen items.
“We have deactivated the certificates for the stolen items and notified marketplace partners so they can be on the lookout for rare and serialized items,” PSA said in a statement. “Our customer service team has contacted affected customers directly and is arranging compensation based on fair market value.”
PSA sent a letter to affected cards owners, detailing the steps taken to make the owners whole.
“After leaving our PSA facility in Southern California, a FedEx vehicle transporting PSA orders was burglarized, and items were stolen,” the letter read, continuing with a list of items titled “What we are doing.”
Among the items are deactivating the serial numbers on the affected items, notifying commerce partners across digital, auction and other selling platforms so they can look out for stolen items; aiding FedEx and law enforcement in their investigations; and studying what happened so a repeat can be avoided.
Nick Andrews, whose social media persona is the Boston Card Hunter, is keeping track of items reported stolen, a number that had exceeded 1,000 by Tuesday morning. He wrote on X that one victim had cards worth $500,000 stolen.
Card trader Sky-B said on a video that 104 of the cards he collected over the past two years are missing. They had been certified at PSA and were being returned to him in Michigan when he learned about the theft. He said he spent $8,000 on grading, and the cards carried insurance of up to $156,000, less than their market value.
“There were cards in that order that you can’t replace,” Sky-B said.
Longtime sports business reporter Darren Rovell, an avid trading card and memorabilia collector since childhood, said on social media that expensive collectibles are at risk any time they are shipped. Not only can shipping labels and declared insurance values reveal their potential contents, “the simple name PSA or Collectors in the address box is the threat,” Rovell wrote.
Protests are sweeping France as anger over conditions in schools meets frustration with high living costs and a government accused of doing little to address problems facing people.
