Understanding how -- and where -- L.A. votes [Video Discussion]

Times database editor Ben Welsh and city hall reporter David Zahniser will discuss a new interactive map showing results from the past three mayoral elections in Los Angeles during a Google + Hangout Wednesday at 2:45 p.m.

You can find the map at graphics.latimes.com/la-mayoral-maps/.

It will be updated soon after the upcoming March 5 primary when the city clerk’s office releases provisional results for the 1,559 precincts where ballots will be cast.

FULL COVERAGE: LA's race for mayor

Results are presented as a series of dot-density maps, each dot representing a voter in one of the hundreds of precincts across the city. The dots are randomly placed within precinct boundaries and colored according to the candidate each voter selected.

Also available for each race is a companion map that colors in each precinct for the candidate who received the most votes there.

Vote-by-mail ballots are included in overall totals but not mapped for the 2001 and 2005 contests. This is because the city clerk’s office did not begin recording votes cast by mail by precinct until 2007, according to Peter Flores, a systems analyst in the city clerk’s office.

ALSO:

MAP: All of California's 2012 election results

MAP: How Los Angeles County voted in the 2012 election

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