Measure S Wins with Flurry of Last-minute Absentee Votes

By Jorge Casuso

June 5 -- The cash-strapped school district slashed its $13 million budget shortfall in half and staved off a round of layoffs after a tally of more than 1,000 last-minute votes Thursday turned a razor thin margin into an undisputed victory.

Measure S picked up 868 of the 1,073 absentee and provisional votes counted by the County Registrar Thursday afternoon, giving it a total of 12,146 votes, or 67.61 percent, 1 percent more than the necessary two-thirds needed.

Opponents of the $225 parcel tax -- which will pump $6.5 million a year for six years into the district -- picked up 205 votes, finishing with a total of 5,819 votes and dashing any hopes that a recount could reverse the results.

“It’s pretty definitive,” said Marcia Ventura, the Registrar’s public information officer. “These were all the absentees and provisionals we know of. We’re still conducting the canvassing and there could be a few stragglers.” But, she added that those votes wouldn’t make much of a difference.

District officials, who have eagerly, and nervously, awaited the count since Tuesday’s initial tally gave Measure S a razor-thin margin of victory, welcomed the final result.

“I’m very relieved, and I’m very pleased,” said John Deasy, as he headed back to Santa Monica from the final tally at the Registrar’s office in Norwalk. “This really affirms the community’s belief in education as a top priority.

“We still have a lot of worries ahead of us, but this feels very good,” Deasy added, referring to the major dent the six-year tax will make on the district’s $13 million shortfall in the upcoming school year.

“We don’t know what the State budget will be or how many people will be retiring, but this has saved a tremendous number of jobs,” said Teachers’ Union President Harry Keiley. “It’s the beginning of the education movement in Santa Monica.”

Matt Millen, who ran the “No on S” campaign, said he would not ask for a recount.

“Given the margin, I don’t think I’m going to ask for a recount at his point,” Millen said.

In the end, the Measure S campaign strategy of focusing on urging parents to vote absentee paid off, with nearly half of the total winning votes cast on absentee ballots.

“That seems to have made a huge difference,” said campaign co-chair Ralph Mechur. “Last week we were calling people who had requested absentee ballots. After that, we called people again and told them to walk them in if they hadn’t mailed them.”

“The absentee ballots obviously made the difference,” Millen said.

The vote count Thursday began at 3 p.m. and lasted about half an hour, with Deasy, along with school and campaign officials, and Millen watching through a glass partition as an election official took stacks of ballots from a tray, fanned them and fed them into a machine. The tallied votes then appeared on a computer screen.

While the screen was too far away to make out the results, proponents had reason to be optimistic. Before the count, they had looked over the shoulders of county election officials as they manually compared the signatures on the outstanding ballots with those on the voter registration rolls.

While the signatures on the approximately 900 absentee ballots were not accompanied by the votes cast, observers could glimpse the results on the approximately 200 provisional ballots cast by voters whose registration was in question.

“We could see the results of the provisional ballots, and it was almost nine to one,” Keiley said. “We were there all day, literally standing over people’s shoulders.

“It’s a good time right now, we have to kind of savor the moment,” he added. “What a sweat job.”

The results of the election have been in question since Tuesday’s initial tally shortly before midnight put Measure S ahead by a handful of votes. It quickly became clear that the more than 1,000 outstanding ballots would hold the key to the election.

“It was a great lesson in democracy,” said Keiley, who teaches government. “It brings home that ‘my vote doesn’t count’ couldn’t be further from the truth.”