Measure R's lead expands yet again

The Los Angeles County Registrar updated the vote totals for Measure R late Wednesday. The half-cent sales tax increase for transportation in L.A. County now has 67.89% of the vote, its largest total yet.

Measure R needs two-thirds of the vote to secure passage. I'll post the number of votes left to be counted on Monday when the Registrar's office reopens. As of now, Measure R has a raw vote lead of about 35,550 votes -- so, if there are fewer outstanding ballots than that number, it's over. Measure R will have won.

-- Steve Hymon

Comments

[calwatch]

Kym, the County Clerk, by state law, always has a month to complete the canvass, and usually takes the full month. There were hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots dropped off at polling places or in the mail two or three days before the election, and each one has to be accounted for. Each ballot issued at the polling places has to be accounted for, since many times clueless poll workers put ballots where they shouldn't go by accident (like in the ballot supply tub, or stuck in the machine, or in a discard tray). Not only do you have record turnout, but you also have a County in budget crisis and reluctant to pay people overtime and/or hire new employees. To minimize cost, and maximize accuracy, it is not necessary to pay employees to count ballots 80 hours a week... although most RR/CC employees do work that long for a week or two before the election and one to two weeks after the election. It's just that you can't expect those hours from them for six or seven weeks without burnout. So please show a little respect for the tough job Dean Logan and his cadre of trained employees are doing in getting you the results of this election.

[Kymberleigh Richards]

The suspense is killing me now and I have to start wondering why it is taking almost a full month past election day for the County Clerk to complete this process.

The Bush-Gore recount in Florida didn't take this long!

[Ken Alpern]

Can't get enough of this type of good news! Each year, things keep getting better and better for transportation in general, although this year appears to be a particularly huge step forward.

The next step will be to make sure the money gets spent right, whether it's for freeways, road, rail, bicycle or whatever projects are so long overdue for our county and for our state.

[Marc]

Actually, the vote lead is 36,547

(2/3 of 2,986,698 votes is 1,991,132. Measure R currently has 2,027,679).

Good news all around!

[Ken Ash]

The fat lady has been sining for two weeks. Call it already. Let's get to expanding rail and improving bus service.