Measure R Passes; Malibu’s Specific Super Tuesday Precinct Numbers Are Still Being Tabulated

• Local Voters Mirror Heavy Statewide Voter Turnout in History-Making Primary Election •

BY ANNE SOBLE

According to the latest Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk tally from the Feb. 5 election, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District parcel tax, Measure R, passed handily by 22,309 to 8446. In percentage terms, Measure R was approved by 72.54 percent to 27.46 percent. The parcel tax required two-thirds approval of the votes cast to pass.
The number of voters who cast ballots on the measure was 30,755, or 43 percent of the district’s total registration of 70,107. The vote count was completed for the 71 precincts in the district at 3:57 a.m. on Wednesday.
Malibu voters mirrored other voters statewide who went to the polls in record numbers in what was inarguably one of the most exciting primary elections in American history. The final vote tallies for local precincts in the 90265 voting area are expected to be available sometime Wednesday or Thursday.
Those numbers will be posted on the MSN website and blog at www.malibusurfsidenews.com as soon as they are downloadable. The precinct-by-precinct breakdown will be analyzed in greater detail in subsequent posts on the website and in articles in next week’s print edition of The News.
Supporters of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s Measure R had gathered at a Malibu restaurant Tuesday night, where campaign organizers expressed optimism that the parcel tax would receive the 66.67 percent vote that was required for passage.
There was no organized opposition to the parcel tax measure that was supported by the primarily Santa Monica-based Campaign to Protect Quality Public Schools, which waged a vigorous, well-funded campaign on R’s behalf. Numerous mailings and ads put together by a San Francisco agency stressed the measure’s fiscal necessity without going into specifics about the actual cost of first parcel tax to be approved in perpetuity that is subject to annual cost-of-living adjustments.
Generally speaking, the election went smoothly in Malibu, although some of the same issues that plagued the statewide voting process were encountered locally, including complications when decline-to-state (a political party) registered voters tried to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate as they could choose to do in this primary.
DTS voters who did not mark the appropriate spot on the ballot were told that their votes might be disallowed. County voting officials indicated that this procedural snafu was not expected to have an effect on final results.