From the start until now Measure G has never been in the position of exceeding the two-thirds threshold. And yet, with one more round of vote counts to go, it now appears poised to pass, as the latest round pushes the measure to 67.3 percent of the vote—168 votes above the two-thirds mark.
In a release from the county elections office, there are still 4078 ballots to be processed as of 2:59 pm on Friday.
“The Elections Office projects to certify the 2020 Presidential Primary Election and provide final official results on Wednesday, April 8, 2020,” they estimate.
But it may not matter at this point. The lead now is strong enough that it appears very unlikely it will not pass. To estimate the chances, the measure would have to receive more no votes than yes votes in the last 1000 (just to illustrate the math) in order to fail at this point—even the most unfavorable votes, those that arrived via mail prior to election day, still had the measure receiving 63 percent yes votes.
This represents a pretty stunning turnout. The initial round of votes put Measure G at 63.9 percent. By the end of the election night, the percentage rose slightly to 65.1 percent.
At that point we projected it would take 68.8 percent yes vote percentage, assuming there were 10,000 remaining votes to push the ballot measure to victory.
At that point our analysis was that this was not impossible, but we viewed it as unlikely.
So what changed?
One remarkable factor is that, instead of 10,000 additional votes, so far there have been 13,563 additional votes and we would guess another 1000 to 1500 to go. That means there will actually be 
more votes counted after election day than on election day.
While the measure we projected to need to be 68.8 percent, the actual vote counted after election day was 69.4 percent. And, in fact, it is more impressive than that. That last count released on March 13 pushed the measure to within striking range—for those 4000 votes, it came in at 69.2 percent, pushing the measure to 66.3 percent or 155 votes shy of the two-thirds mark.
Even more stunning is that the last two batches of votes, about 7300 in total, came in at 71.5 percent of the vote.
And the final just under 3300 votes came in at a whopping 74.5 percent yes.
The result was a complete reversal. After the last count, the measure was in a 155-vote deficit from the two-thirds mark, and it is now in a 168-vote lead.
We will probably never really understand why there was such a huge variance, not only between the early votes, the votes on election day and the votes counted after election day, but even within the batches of votes counted on election day.
At this point then, our original analysis from pre-election day that it would narrowly pass appears to have held. Remarkably now, if this latest total holds, it will have passed by a wider margin than 2011’s Measure A, which passed with 67.1 percent of the vote.
At a time when schools are shut down, this will mean that teachers in DJUSD will receive a permanent pay increase to close the compensation gap. The members of the school board can now exhale and not have to worry about their next step—at least for a few more years.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“168 votes above the two-thirds mark.”
504 yes votes ahead or 252 no votes behind
“We will probably never really understand why there was such a huge variance, not only between the early votes, the votes on election day and the votes counted after election day, but even within the batches of votes counted on election day.”
I’ll venture to guess it has to do with the demographics of early voters versus later voters. The early voters are more tilted towards long time residents who like myself are perennially registered as vote by mail. Late voters are more tilted toward younger and first time voters.
It appears the closer to campus a precinct is the larger the yes total. Also don’t forget while those living on campus, but not at Aggie Village, don’t get to vote in city elections they do get to vote in DJUSD elections. The precinct that has the most on campus student housing including West Village has a whopping 81% yes total to date providing 328 yes and 79 no votes. The surplus yes votes over the 2/3 mark in that one precinct is 170 votes.
I have long advocated for annexation of UCD into the city for the purpose of enfranchising students to vote and participate in our local civic life. My advocacy on this issue is because of my belief in participatory democracy. I have cautioned against the policy choices of those who believe UCD should house its students on campus that doing so would create a landscape of disenfranchisement from city politics. These election results are the clearest example of that disconnect that we have ever seen.
Yes… the same #’s you cited point to why I am opposed to annexation of UCD… “representation without taxation”… easy to vote for any tax, any bond, any project, knowing it will affect you financially, NADA!
An interesting comparison, once the canvass is complete, to see how the “UCD vote” went as to the sales tax extension (which they DO pay, at least during academic year) vs. the parcel tax…
Problem is students living on campus didn’t get to vote on Measure Q. However a quick survey of precincts shows that the pattern holds. Although Measure Q did well in the newer and high priced neighborhoods of 95618 the closer to campus a precinct the higher the yes vote percentage. Same as Measure G.
I disagree with your no representation without taxation argument although I recognize its potency among the landed gentry as well as its fealty to the historical tradition of earlier times when only white male landowners voted.
Well, if UCD would enter into an agreement to pay property or at least local taxes for their residential units (technically, that’s feasible), my argument would be moot, and I wouldn’t make it…
My argument is philosophical, and goes back to 1970’s, when I was a student in the dorms for 3 years… the “landed gentry” appellation is snide and inappropriate… was hardly “landed gentry”, 1972-1979. (That comment was just crass. [or, no class])
I did the Absentee Ballot (now VBM) while in college @ UCD… PRECISELY because I felt I had no right to vote locally, if I didn’t think I’d have to put skin in the game.
You can call me “odd”, or “not aware I’d be living in Davis since 1979”, but the “landed gentry” appellation is below you.
But, I’m good now. No hard feelings, we move on, agreeing to disagree on some things…
Ron, how does that relate to Measure G? Students living on campus did get to vote on Measure G.
I was responding to Bill’s post above.
Whether you have wealth, monetarily or in land, should not be a requirement for voting on public policy issues, which is exactly what you are calling for in “representation without taxation.” You are confusing the (supposedly) real issue for the American colonists was that they had NOBODY in Parliament to represent their interests. It wasn’t that those in Parliament did or didn’t have a stake in the issues. You are advocating for the return to the need to be a land-holder to be eligible to vote.
Instead, just accept the fact that we all have a stake in the direction of the community, and some of us, mostly with the help of that community to some degree, have wealth to contribute to the chosen direction.
But, as you ignore, the colonists were taxed… at a grater rate… but had no vote…
Patently false, as to anything other than land based taxes… you dissemble.
True story…
Ahhh… we get to the gist… yes… let’s tax all wealth (as you define it) @ 100%… great policy!
UBI for all! Screw anyone who was fortunate, and saved! 100% income tax, spread it around, and assess folk with assets 75% (value of home, other property, per year)… sounds very righteous… eliminate all public pensions. Seize all 401/403/457 assets… UBI for all!
[This is your 7th, and thus final, post on this thread.
Thank you for your participation.]
“We will probably never really understand why there was such a huge variance, not only between the early votes, the votes on election day and the votes counted after election day, but even within the batches of votes counted on election day.”
I maintain that politically conservative leaning voters were likelier to oppose Measure G than liberal leaning voters. In this particular election, liberal leaning voters were likelier to vote in the Democratic primary, and were also likelier to vote later, even on election day. The field of Democrats was crowded and volatile. Even if you were dedicated to a certain candidate, their viability was in question right up until election day.
Conservative leaning voters did not have the same level of uncertainty in the Republican primary and had less reason to delay their votes, especially if they were VBM voters. In summary, I think the Democratic presidential primary determined voting behavior in this election and drove more liberal-leaning voters to vote later.
Don’t know if that is true, but it surely sounds reasonable and plausible… fits with some of the comments made @ the polling place I worked at… that’s why I did my VBM Monday, and dropped it off @ the polls on March 3.
If this holds, perhaps it will at least discourage vested interests associated with DJUSD from advocating for sprawl, in the hope of getting more money for DJUSD. But, I doubt it, at least for some.
CALSTRS is most likely crashing, as well. And, this salary increase would make it worse, for DJUSD.
I don’t follow your thinking. Please explain.
Again, a little hard for me to follow. Relative to other districts, DJUSD teachers/staff would hold up better than neighboring districts.
I understand that new developments bring additional money to school districts, in more than one way (e.g., one-time payments, more students to fill an over-sized school district). However, I don’t know all of the details regarding all of the ways that this occurs.
If the amount of retirement is based upon salary, then the amount of retirement will increase as well. If DJUSD is relying upon CALSTRS, the salary increase would require DJUSD to increase its payments to CALSTRS.
Similar to the way that cities will be forced to “cough up” more money toward CALPERS, as it crashes. Which would also be made worse by salary increases.
Another parcel tax?
Seems to be hinted at, in the last sentence of the article above:
Ironically, making it that much more difficult for young families with school-age children (e.g., who don’t live in Affordable housing, or on-campus) to purchase / make payments for a house.
Which will further reduce enrollment, in the future.
In any case, “congratulations” to those who advocated for this increase. (Meant at least somewhat sincerely.) 🙂
From my perspective, this district planned its current configuration with the expectation that Davis would grow larger in size. That was the assumption with the facilities master plan in force when Measure J was passed in 2000 that effectively restricted the rate of growth ever since. Ultimately that led to Valley Oak Elementary being closed. I acknowledge that in the past some blog readers here have disputed my view of history on this, but it is a perspective.
Whenever an annexation/development vote comes up, it seems like many voters think of the issue in separate contexts from whether the schools will get more funding or not.
I get that; the more salary one earns, then the more one likely pays in taxes and retirement. But also one has more take home salary.
But it looks like you’re thinking of Davis in isolation of surrounding districts. A point behind Measure G was to improve the district’s salary schedule so as to bring it in line with neighboring districts in order to look more attractive to potential applicants. We’ll see what happens….
Despite high home prices leading to higher property tax rates and that ridiculous CFD that went right into the pockets of The New Homes Company the Cannery precinct still recorded a 63.4% yes vote. While not reaching the 2/3 threshold the newest subdivision posted vote totals close enough to trend that it wasn’t enough to get too worked up over.
Also with the massive housing being built in West Village and the tendency for students to support education DJUSD has little to fear from development going forward.
Even more parcel taxes in the future?
Unlikely but the last one was only for eight years so it will eventually come up for renewal.
Might be interesting to examine how much of that CFD goes toward DJUSD, in one form or another.
Here is a good article from Jeff Hudson a few years ago that could answer a lot of your questions: link
That’s a very informative article, David. Thanks for sharing it. I don’t remember reading it when it first came out.
The homeowner ATM gets tapped again.
I read a comment about a month ago, I think it was in the Enterprise, where someone was concerned with ballot harvesting in regards to Measure G. It’s legal in CA, I don’t understand why, but does anyone know if that occurred in this election?
I didn’t know what “ballot harvesting” was, so I thought I’d do some quick research regarding the definition:
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-what-is-ballot-harvesting-in-california-election-code-20181204-htmlstory.html
Look at the picture in the article Ron cited… same type of bag we used in the polls… those portable ones probably (99.9% confidence level) have the same security seals and ‘chain of custody’ protocols… even if the VBM ballots are picked up without such bags, there are protocols… a VBM voter who does not deliver their own ballot, they have to identify the person who dropped it off on their behalf, and they have to sign. It is a sealed ballot. Poll workers check on that!
The Republican Party, in CA at least, is now the 3rd largest ‘party’ in CA… 1: Democrat; 2: NPP, 3: Republican… perhaps we should place them on a ‘species of concern’ list? Republicans don’t allow NPP’s to vote on their primary ballot… Democrats do.
Note in the article, that most (if not all) the concerns expressed are from Republican sources…
In Yolo County, am not aware of ANY VBM mobile drop-offs… e-mail Jesse Salinas… am 100% sure he’d give a straight answer to whether that took place in Yolo County…
Unless someone has done VBM, and/or worked as a poll worker… I guess I could understand why someone who has done neither could be paranoid, and/or posit ‘conspiracy theories’ (particularly when outcomes don’t “go their way”)… I regularly do both, and have no worries… but I do have a bias, freely admitted… I have less than zero respect for someone who explicitly or implicitly questions the Measure G results, if they were not qualified to vote on the measure.
My record on recommendations (or lack thereof) on Measure G have been quite clear… this “harvesting ballots” thing seems spurious, almost (but not quite) ‘trolling’ … again I say, the canvass has not been completed. It is what it is as to the outcome, even tho’ we do not have ‘certified’ results. So, it won’t affect the outcome, and sure sounds like “sour grapes”, which can only be crushed and used to make very poor “whine”…
Just to clarify, I only posted the definition.
However, I can see how this might be used – not just in this election.
For example, specifically collecting ballots from those living in campus housing, who might be more inclined to vote for this (without being subject to the parcel tax at all, as you’ve noted).
Or at least, focusing on areas that aren’t already paying a lot toward CFDs for DJUSD.
I’m not passing judgement on it, and it’s the first I’ve heard of it.
But, since it addresses absentee ballots, it seems as plausible of an explanation as anything else posted on this page.
Given that most of the premium on Davis house values creates that “homeowner ATM” comes from the excellence of the Davis schools compared to others in the Sacramento Valley, asking them to pay up to fund continuation of that house value premium. (This effect is well documented in the economics literature since John Quigley first explored it in 1990.)
Ballot harvesting would be necessary if we didn’t throw up so many barriers to registering and voting, which causes the US to have one of the lowest voter turnout ratios in the world.
I attribute late “YES” votes to the no campaign lawn signs that appeared late in the campaign: Support our Teachers, Not Parcel Taxes. Just how do we support them, then? Bake sales, raffle tickets or by just keeping them in our thoughts and prayers?
But that doesn’t explain the big variance between the vote at the polls (about 66.9 yes) and the vote on the late absentees (about 69.4 percent yes) and the vote on the latest absentees (74.5 percent yes)
You missed my point. The signs showed up late in the “campaign”. I’m saying the signs were so uniquely idiotic in messaging that they helped people to decide to vote Yes who had possibly toyed with not voting or weren’t reading the Vanguard or Enterprise (most voters). Get it? It is my belief that many voters do not read any kind of analysis in news outlets. They vote based on what their friends and trusted sources suggest and may also skip voting…they are squishy votes. The “NO” signs goaded people into voting yes. Brilliant slogan they came up with.
Certainly true Dave on down ballot races like measure G. I wore that yes on G pin for weeks. On Election Day the college kids at Mischkas were all talking about voting for Bernie and when one admitted not knowing anything about rest of the local ballot I interrupted and told them to vote yes on G. I have enough of a friendship with them and have earned enough respect from them over time that they told me they would.
No, Hiram had a plausible answer…
One way to test it is to see what the participation rates were with each voter count update between the Republican primary candidates (mainly Trump) and the Democratic primary candidates. If higher percentages of Democratic primary voters showed up in later voter updates, then it proves the correlation.
Unfortunately, I was so hyper-focused on Measure G updates that I didn’t think to keep track of the presidential primary participation figures. Maybe the County Elections Office has previous updates on record?
What hasn’t been said here and I think really needs to be pointed out is the amazing and continuous decades long support shown by the people of Davis for public education. While in many places in California, the middle class has abandoned public education, the people of Davis have risen to meet each funding challenge to our schools with their checkbooks open. We should be proud of this community’s commitment to providing opportunities for every child in our town to develop to the best of their ability. If it takes a village to raise a child the Davis community has once again risen to the challenge.
Special thanks should go to Trustee Alan Fernandes, who having recognized early on that DJUSD would not be able to compete financially under LCFF, led on this issue. First he tried to go the initiative route and when that failed he persisted and went with the heavy lift of a 2/3 vote on a parcel tax.
Recognition should also go out to Trustee Joe Dinunzio whose business experience lent much credibility to the process.
Everyone else who worked on the campaign, put up a lawn sign, wrote a check or a letter to the editor, made a blog post and ultimately voted yes on G deserves the gratitude of this community.
Before Prop. 13, local property taxes were the main way that local schools were funded. It gave a sense of local ownership and responsibility for the public schools. That’s what’s been lost since about the 1970’s, statewide. Schools now are primarily funded by the state, and the state attaches strings and restrictions to those funds. And the state gives out the message the it’s providing just the right amount of money for that local school district to run appropriately.
Also what’s happened is that schools have become more uniform in their curricula and policies, almost like having a McDonald’s or Starbucks in every community. Davis is politically engaged enough in that way to try to buck that trend. I find it fascinating to hear many school administrators use language and vocabulary that corporate CEO’s might use. It’s understandable how that is, but it has a distancing effect on relating to the community that the school district is supposed to serve.
“One” of us isn’t “getting that”, but I’m not sure which of us.
You’re continuing to look at this from the perspective of teachers, rather than the extra amount that the school district might be responsible for (in regard to district payments to CALSTRS), as a result of the salary increase. I would hope that some portion of that is paid by teachers, but I don’t know.
Also – CALSTRS is apparently reeling in the same way that CALPERS is (as a result of economic collapse).
If it works the same way as cities, then the district will have to come up with more money as a result of both the salary increase, and economic collapse.
I would hope so, but I strongly suspect this isn’t the case (among some). I didn’t previously realize this, until I started reading the Vanguard. I have since come to the conclusion that some are willing to support sprawl, for the sole purpose of raising more money for schools. (It’s really disappointing.)
Uninformed post… see CalSTRS website… duh!
Right, but all school districts have to deal with the same thing — Vacaville, Dixon, Woodland, Winters, Davis, etc. It doesn’t uniquely affect Davis. Over the years, teachers have been responsible for paying for an increasing portion of their CalSTRS plan.
Those places did not provide a “raise” to teachers via a parcel tax. I’m not sure if they got a raise, at all. We know that there were a significant number of teacher layoffs in Sacramento, recently.
Again, if the amount of retirement is based upon salary, then the district is going to be responsible for increased costs to cover their portion of retirement benefits – as a direct result of the salary increase.
Seems like you’re continuing to focus on teachers, while I’m addressing district impacts.
I noticed that you didn’t address what I’ve concluded regarding the willingness of some to support continued sprawl, vs. right-sizing the district. (Which is ultimately the same reason that the district is pursuing out-of-district students.)
It’s all about money, as usual.
Since the campaign is over, I’d suggest that those associated with the district enjoy their “win”, and leave it at that.
But, my personal opinion (based upon the arguments on here, over time) is not as positive toward those associated with the school district, as it once was. (For what that’s worth.)
Ultimately, they’re a labor interest group, the same as any other. There’s lots of workers suffering a lot more than teachers, these days. And, they also perform services which make society function – even if they don’t have strong labor groups/organizations.
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Final count is in. Measure G passes!