As Malibu Goes, So Goes the State and the
Nation (Sort of)
• Measure R Would Not Have Been
Approved by 90265 Voters
Malibu voters appear to be in sync
with many of the voters elsewhere in the Southland and much of
the state for the most part, but there were some notable
exceptions.
The 8370 registered voters in the city and
the 1989 registered voters in unincorporated Malibu have
traditionally shown strong streaks of independence in their
voting patterns.
In the city, there are 3561 registered
Democrats, 2720 Republicans and 1735 Decline-to-State
voters (still called Non-Partisan on some forms). In Malibu
Heights, the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s
Office designation for unincorporated Malibu, there
are 723 Democrats, 655 Republicans and 507 DTS voters.
In terms of votes cast, 42 percent of
registered city voters went to the polls, but unincorporated
voters only had a 36 percent turnout.
In assessing voting patterns, all Malibu
precincts will be totalled together and assessed as 90265
voters in Los Angeles County.
Measure R, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified
School District parcel tax that was approved handily in the
school district as a whole, would not have passed if it only
were up to Malibu voters, i.e., if only those in the city and
in unincorporated Malibu got to decide its fate.
More Malibuites favored Measure R than not,
by a margin of 2138 to 1730, but that is only a 55.27 percent
approval rate, not the 66.67 percent that was required for
passage. That called for the heavy pro-R vote from Santa Monica
to put the measure over the top.
Malibuites were even less kind to funding
for community colleges as packaged in Proposition 92.
Here they voted in opposition by a margin of 2305 to 1475.
They were somewhat less adamant but just as
opposed to Proposition 93 on term limits, where they expressed opposition by 2077 nays to 1819 yays.
Indian gaming expansion tended to have
strong support across the board with all Malibu precincts but
three, but even here, the margins were close and would not have
tilted the overall yes votes on the four-measure package.
That Hillary Clinton may have waited too
long to make some campaign staff changes might have
already been evident in her Malibu numbers. Barack Obama
outvoted her by 1483 to 1067. Though she took the state, her
local numbers reflect the surge that Obama has seen in recent
weeks.
Clinton still has strongholds that may fall
in her camp, but Malibu may turn out be a reasonable precursor
of the delegate count before the convention.
The extent to which the Malibu Democratic
vote was skewed by DTS, or independent voters, taking part
cannot be ascertained from the current county data. That some
ballots had the so-called “double-bubble” problem
is not perceived as having a statistical impact on the totals.
Whether John McCain will have the 1191
delegates he needs before the GOP convention opens wasn’t
aided by the local Republican numbers. Malibuites gave Mitt
Romney 548 votes, McCain got 517, and Mike Huckabee
received 55 votes.
These are still unofficial numbers as the
county continues to hand count ballots that could not be
processed by machine. No major surprises are expected however,
and the final tallies are slated to be formally certified in
three weeks.
