Voter Counts Suggest a Low Turnout

With nearly all ballots counted from last week’s primary election, an elections official predicted Wednesday that Ventura County’s total voter turnout will rank as the lowest in 12 years.

The semiofficial results released Wednesday, which included about 20,000 more absentee ballot returns, did not change the outcome of any races. Although about 1,700 ballots still need to be tallied, Bruce Bradley, assistant registrar of voters, said the county has now counted 153,556 ballots, putting voter turnout at 42.8%.

Bradley expects the number to rise slightly as more ballots trickle in, but said it may not top 43.9%--the percent of voters who turned out in the 1984 presidential primary. “I have no idea why” it was low this time, Bradley said.

Bradley said Wednesday’s results confirmed the failure of a parcel tax measure in Piru that was proposed to keep the community’s small library open.

Measure W won 64.6% of the vote, just shy of the 66.7% majority needed to pass. Bradley estimates the initiative that asked homeowners to tax themselves $35 to raise money for the library lost by 10 votes. “It’s a real heartbreaker,” said Donna Roff, a Library Services Agency official who oversees small branches, including Piru.

Roff said the agency will probably face additional cutbacks this year and that one scenario involves closing the Piru branch, now housed in an elementary school.