Measure S May not be Decided Until Next Week

By Jorge Casuso

June 4 -- The fate of Measure S -- which currently leads by a handful of votes -- rests with the more than 1,100 last-minute absentee and provisional ballots County Election officials will begin counting on Thursday.

Between 800 and 850 absentee ballots were either received by mail or dropped off at Santa Monica and Malibu polling places Tuesday, according to the County Registrar’s office. Another 325 provisional ballots were cast by voters whose registration was in question.

“The plan is to focus on the absentees and count those tomorrow,” said Marcia Ventura, the Registrar’s public information officer. “Then we’ll get to the provisionals and decide if we can count them Friday afternoon or Monday.”

County election officials must manually check the signatures on the outstanding ballots against the voter registration rolls, a time-consuming process, Ventura said.

The remaining ballots will alter Tuesday night’s final tally, which showed Measure S pulling in 11,278 votes (66.77 percent), to the opposition’s 5,614 (33.23) with all of the precincts counted.

Proponents are hoping that the remaining votes will retain, if not increase, the razor-thin margin of victory for the $225 parcel tax, which would pump $6.5 million annually for six years into a district that faces a $13 million shortfall in the upcoming school year.

The Measure S campaign focused much of its energies on urging parents to vote absentee, an option traditionally used by older, conservative homeowners. As a result, proponents of Measure S cast the overwhelming majority of the 7,397 absentee ballots -- 4,920 (65.51 percent) to 2,477 (33.49).

Although the measure barely failed to win the required two-thirds of the absentee votes, proponents are hopeful that the absentee ballots walked in by voters on Election Day will further increase their margin of victory.

“We let people know who had requested absentee ballots that if they hadn’t mailed them in by Friday, they should walk them in,” said Ralph Mechur, a campaign co-chair. “There were a lot of people calling. We made a push that they walk them in.”

On the other hand, the “No on S” campaign has little reason to believe that opponents rushed to the polls with absentee ballots in hand. The campaign -- which spent $7,000 to the proponent’s more than $200,000 -- didn’t have the money to send their one mailer in time for supporters to request absentee ballots.

“I didn’t get it out in time,” said Mat Millen, who ran the campaign. “I didn’t have the money.”

Still, opponents only need to get a little more than one-third of the outstanding votes to reverse the final outcome, which could still face a challenge.

If the margin of victory remains close after all the votes are counted, Millen said he would consider asking the County Registrar for a recount. But a recount -- which must be paid for by the party requesting it -- could be expensive, and the campaign coffers are empty, Millen said.

The recount must be requested in writing within five calendar days after the completion of the official canvass, according to election officials. Any voter in the contest can make the request.

The recount, which is open to the public, “must start no later than seven calendar days following the receipt of the request and shall be continued daily, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays excepted, for not less than six hours each day until completed,” according to the Registrar’s Web site.

The request can specify the order in which the precincts would be counted, the method of counting used (computer, manual or both) and “any other relevant material to be examined,” according to the Web site.

Millen said his possible challenge would focus on absentee ballots that list the address of a homeless shelter and those cast by Malibu voters who do not primarily reside in the property they own in the district.

The recount could also include a manual recount similar to the one conducted in Florida after the 2000 Presidential Election. But unlike the Florida recount, “chads” will not likely play a major role, Ventura said.

“We’ve not had that problem that they had in Florida,” Ventura said. “We clean our machines” after every election.

Tuesday was the last time the county used a “punch card” voting process, Ventura said.