Uncounted Ballots May Pass Prop. Q

The $600-million bond measure to fund Los Angeles police and fire facilities appears short of the two-thirds vote needed to pass, but thousands of outstanding ballots must be counted before it can be considered defeated, officials said Wednesday.

Of the 356,849 votes cast in Tuesday’s election, Proposition Q garnered 66.61%, just .05% short of the 66.66% needed.

The slim margin left little room for gloating by the taxpayer and homeowner groups that opposed the measure as an unnecessary tax increase, or by the city officials who touted it as crucial to public safety.

Both groups, however, were cautiously optimistic.

“We are still holding out hope,” said City Council President Alex Padilla, who co-chaired the Proposition Q campaign. “There are several thousand votes that have yet to be counted by the county. We are hoping there is enough there to put us over the top.”

Without declaring the measure dead, Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., said, “This was a public-safety bond in the wake of 9/11. If it fails, I think it speaks to a higher degree of sophistication on behalf of voters than proponents of Proposition Q figured. Apparently they thought anything with the words ‘public safety’ on it was going to pass.”

Mayor James K. Hahn and Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, whose bid for a second term Hahn refused to back, made a rare joint appearance last month to announce their support for the measure. City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who supported the measure, said, “This is one occasion where [Hahn and Parks] stood together,” and called the 66.61% favorable vote “overwhelming.”

The Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office was tallying the outstanding, or provisional ballots, Wednesday afternoon. These include absentee ballots received at the polls or in the mail, damaged ballots and ballots cast by voters whose eligibility has yet to be determined by the registrar’s office.

“We had 63,000 absentee voter ballots by Tuesday night,” said Grace Chavez, a spokeswoman for the registrar-recorder’s office.

Chavez said her office should have “a good feel” for the number of provisional votes by Friday.

The county Board of Supervisors is scheduled to certify the election April 2.