According to the Alameda County election results, most residents of those precincts voted against Measure S, with a majority voting in favor of Measure R and state Proposition 30.

Although Councilmember Jesse Arreguin said that 30 percent of voters who vote in national and state elections usually do not vote in local elections, he said that he noticed more participation in the local elections this year than in previous years.

Measure S — which would have prohibited sitting on sidewalks in commercial districts between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. with limited exceptions — failed by a margin of just 4 percent.

A majority of the precincts near the campus with a high student population largely voted in opposition to the measure, which may have played a substantial role in its defeat.

“If you just look at the results of the precincts where there are high numbers of students … (students) really were the margin that defeated Measure S,” Arreguin said.

In District 8, which encompasses most of the east side of campus, 251 voters living between Bancroft Way, Channing Way and east of Piedmont Avenue voted against the measure, compared to the 125 voters who supported the measure, according to the report.

According to ASUC Senator Nolan Pack, student involvement played a large role in raising awareness about the sit-lie measure and its impacts on campus and the community.

“The Measure S campaign worked at an incredible ground gain,” Pack said. “People go door to door walking and talking about the impacts, and a lot of those canvassing were overwhelmingly students.”

Measure R — which will amend the existing city charter to eliminate the 1986 boundary lines and adjust district boundaries to reflect the city’s updated population — passed throughout the city with 65.92 percent of the vote.

Overwhelmingly high support was seen in precincts around the campus, which includes parts of Districts 4, 6, 7 and 8, which all border the campus and contain large student populations.

According to report, in one precinct on the south side of campus between Durant Avenue and Channing Way, 519 residents voted for Measure R, as opposed to the 94 residents who voted against the measure.

“Students acknowledge that this was an opportunity to have more of a voice and thus supported it in broad numbers,” Arreguin said.

Despite the city’s large student population, the current — and controversial — boundaries divide the city in such a way that it has not been possible to create a supermajority district of UC Berkeley students since the redistricting rules were established in 1986.

At the state level, Prop. 30 also drew enormous support from precincts with many students. Passed on Nov. 6, the proposition will increase the tax rate on Californians earning more than $250,000 and temporarily raise the state sales tax by a quarter of a percentage point to increase funding for K-12 education and universities.

More than 80 percent of residents in almost all precincts in District 7, which includes most of the south side of campus, voted in favor of the measure.

“Prop. 30 certainly sparked a lot of interest in students on the UC Berkeley campus … and that was really represented by large lines at the dorms,” said ASUC Chief Deputy of National Affairs Nicholas Kitchel. “(It’s) definitely an example of how students were driven to vote.”

Contact Daphne Chen at daphnechen@dailycal.org.

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Faith Buchanan/File

The number of formal complaints of election law violations filed by city residents was higher in this year’s election as compared to those filed in previous years.

Community members filed a total of four complaints in the Nov. 6 election, with two of the four complaints set to be resolved by the city’s Fair Campaign Practices Commission next month. In the last six years, the commission has seen smaller numbers of formal complaints during local elections.

“There was a lot on the ballot this year, so there was … maybe slightly more (complaints) this year,” said Kristy van Herick, the commission’s secretary. “It just depends on how busy the election is.”

Both the complaint against one of the slates running for the Rent Stabilization Board and the complaint against Councilmember Laurie Capitelli’s re-election committee will be discussed at a special meeting on Dec. 13, though the two complaints about Measure T — which narrowly failed in this year’s election and would have allowed expanded development in West Berkeley — have been resolved.

City Planning Commissioner Patti Dacey filed a complaint in October alleging that the Tenants United For Fairness slate used large donations to oppose Berkeley’s Measure U — also known as the Sunshine Ordinance — to release two mailers largely in support of TUFF’s slate of rent board candidates.

“They wrote a lengthy complaint that’s baseless,” said Jay James, a former TUFF slate candidate. “I’ll be waiting to see (what the FCPC will say).”

The complaint filed by former mayor Shirley Dean alleges that the Re-Elect Laurie Capitelli for City Council 2012 Committee violated a state law specifying that an officer of a local agency may not engage in “political activities of any kind while in uniform.” The mailer the committee sent featured a photo of Capitelli with a uniformed police officer. The pictured officer was Capitelli’s son, a police officer in Petaluma.

“The campaign funds used to produce and distribute this misleading, illegal mailer violates campaign spending laws over which (the commission has) jurisdiction,” the complaint states.

However, Capitelli said Dean’s claims are based on violations of state law, which would not be within the purview of the commission.

“I think that her allegations are unfounded,” he said.

The commission is limited to overseeing the Berkeley Election Reform Act and typically does not evaluate the accuracy of the material, van Herick said.

During the 2006 election, the commission investigated three complaints regarding potential campaign violations, but in 2008, the FCPC did not investigate any complaints about violations of the Berkeley Election Reform Act, according to reports submitted by the commission to the City Council.

Similarly, during the city’s 2010 election, no formal complaint was listed, though a potential complaint was brought up, according to the commission’s previous board meeting agenda.

“I think (complaints have) been higher than ever before,” Dean said. “It shows the blatant disregard of the city and state laws.”

Daphne Chen covers city government. Contact her at daphnechen@dailycal.org.

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Matthew Lee/File

With the final poll numbers showing that Measure S, Berkeley’s controversial sit-lie ordinance, narrowly failed in this year’s election, dismayed proponents of the ballot measure are in a time of reflection.

Proponents spent months arguing that the measure was an absolute necessity to keep streets safe and improve business in the city’s commercial districts. Critics responded passionately, decrying the measure as an attempt to “criminalize” homelessness.

In the end, the opponents won. Despite initial leads early on, Measure S was ultimately defeated 52.5 percent to 47.7 percent.

Oddly enough, both the advocates and the critics of the measure found hope in the slim margin of defeat.

Opponents of the measure saw the victory as hard-fought against a campaign that had far more money at its disposal than they did, said Bob Offer-Westort, campaign coordinator for the No on Measure S campaign.

“I think it failed for a couple of reasons,” Offer-Westort said. “It failed partially because people are generally pretty good. People want to do the right thing.”

Councilmember Jesse Arreguin, who was against Measure S, pointed to the student community, which he felt was strongly united against the ballot initiative.

With their coveted victory, neither Offer-Westort nor Arreguin said the Yes on S campaign was not concerned with future attempts at reintroducing measures similar to Measure S.

For proponents, this close defeat was a sign that Berkeley was a city wholly receptive of their message.

“We almost won,” said Craig Becker, president of the Telegraph Business Improvement District and owner of Caffe Mediterraneum. “That shows that everybody that voted with us was not satisfied with the situation.”

For Becker, it was a battle against two things — misinformation and time.

Becker pointed at the allegations made that Measure S would forbid sitting on residential sidewalks and would criminalize the homeless. He also addressed the claim that large developers ran the campaign. The first is completely untrue, Becker said, as the measure would have only affected commercial sidewalks. The second allegation was also inaccurate, Becker said.

“That’s like saying if you get a ticket for jaywalking, you’re criminalizing walking,” he said.

For the final allegation, Becker acknowledges the important role that developers had in funding the campaign but said the opposition exaggerated its involvement.

“That was a huge misconception,” Becker said. “I’m not downgrading their contributions, but this was not their battle. It was our battle. It was the battle of the small shops.”

Arreguin saw the “battle” in a very different light.

“I think it’s a victory of the people over big money,” Arreguin said.

But in the end, this election was what some called a race against the clock. The No on Measure S campaign had started considerably earlier, Becker said.

“We got started a little late,” Becker said. “We made a lot of progress, but I think the real thing is we ran out of time.”
For supporters of the campaign, victory might have been at hand if there were a bit more time, Becker said.

Now, though many options may be on the table, nothing is concrete.

“I’m not aware of anything at this time,” said Councilmember Susan Wengraf, who supported the measure. “I don’t think anybody’s regrouped yet.”

The critics, however, have plans to move forward. Arreguin intends to bring an agenda item forward at the Dec. 18 City Council meeting to look into crafting a package of solutions to tackle the homelessness issue.

Jaehak Yu is the lead city government reporter. Contact him at jyu@dailycal.org.

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Jan Flatley-Feldman/File

ASUC External Affairs Vice President Shahryar Abbasi spent the week leading up to last week’s election working from 7 a.m. to midnight to make sure UC Berkeley students were informed on Election Day.

One of the pieces of legislation on which Abbasi worked tirelessly to educate students  was Proposition 30, which could have dealt a $250 million cut from the university had it failed.

In the week leading up to the Nov. 6 election, it was unclear whether the proposition would pass. Despite strong indicators in the month leading up to the election that the proposition would pass, multiple polls released the week just before Election Day showed that support for Prop. 30 had fallen below 50 percent for the first time.

The result was a tense election night for UC students, who feared the 20.3 percent tuition hike analysts predicted the proposition’s failure would mean for the system. But once all precincts had been accounted for, the proposition passed with 54 percent of the vote — a victory many attribute to young voters.

Among 18- to 29- year-olds, who represented 28 percent of votes on Prop. 30, two-thirds cast their ballots in favor of Prop. 30, according to exit polls conducted for The Associated Press.

At UC Berkeley, the effort to get out the vote was widespread, with student groups tweeting, using Facebook, registering voters at campus entrances and holding special information forums about Prop 30.

“(There is a) direct impact on tuition, on fees and on the value of degrees,” Abbasi said. “Most students hold their college education very near and dear. The only reason the vote was so high is because of Prop. 30 being the focal point.”

The systemwide UC Student Association registered more than 51,800 people to vote, according to UCSA President Raquel Morales.

“(At every UC) campus, you had a huge effort to let students know what was happening with the proposition,” Abbasi said. “We had maybe a week before the election where people were expecting 30 to fail, and the student turnout proved them wrong.”

Gov. Jerry Brown, who crafted Prop. 30, also turned to college students to pass it. On Oct. 16, Brown spoke to representatives from UC student newspapers at UCLA and then at a rally on the campus.

“If Prop. 30 is defeated, the notion of additional state funding will be defeated with it,” Brown said during the interview.

Abbasi and Nicholas Kitchel, chief deputy of national affairs at the ASUC, said California’s new online voter registration program also probably contributed to the high youth voter turnout.

“We did a number of things in order to get people to register online,” Kitchel said. “We basically tried everything we could online to engage students because on Facebook and on other social media websites you have a captive audience who is our target age.”

380,000 voters in California used the online system — which went into effect for the first time this election — to register for the first time.

“Students are so technology-oriented and it’s already a huge part of our daily lives,” said Lilly Adams who is chair of the campus chapter of CalPIRG, which was also a part of the ASUC Vote Coalition. “It’s one less obstacle because there are no excuses and no forms — you can do it right in your dorm. I think it made it a lot easier for students to get registered. It  was a big help.”

Contact Ally Rondoni at arondoni@dailycal,org.

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Faith Buchanan/File

Despite the hopes harbored by some candidates that the implementation of ranked choice would be a game changer in this year’s mayoral race, the new voting system had little impact in last Tuesday’s election.

After two election cycles of ranked-choice voting, the system has yet to conjure any serious controversy due to the resilience of the city’s incumbents, therefore avoiding the most controversial aspect of the system: instant run-off.

Under ranked choice, voters rank their favorite candidates from one to three. If there is not a candidate that acquires more than 50 percent of the vote, one candidate is eliminated. The second- and third-ranked votes are then distributed to the remaining candidates.

In Berkeley, Mayor Tom Bates won his third consecutive re-election bid with about 54 percent of the vote, eliminating the need for instant run-off.

The instant run-off system of vote distribution has brought some controversy to neighboring cities like San Leandro or Oakland.

In 2010, the Oakland mayoral race drew controversy due to a change in frontrunners after the instant run-off. Current Mayor Jean Quan won the election in 2010 despite not winning the most first-round votes. She had garnered 24 percent, whereas her contender, Don Perata, received about 34 percent.

Quan’s election in Oakland is one example of a race in which coalition running on an “anyone but Don Perata” platform succeeded. However, opposition Berkeley candidates Councilmember Kriss Worthington, Jacquelyn McCormick and Kahlil Jacobs-Fantauzzi attempted a similar strategy but were unsuccessful in unseating the incumbent.

A case like Oakland’s, however, is not necessarily applicable in Berkeley, said Rob Richie, executive director of FairVote, a ranked-choice advocacy group.

For starters, Oakland did not have any incumbents running in that election.

FairVote has not yet been able to analyze the results of Berkeley’s utilization of ranked choice because the ballots for the second- and third-round votes are not currently available. Nonetheless, it simply has not played a major role in the election, Richie said.

“It’s not like the system did anything complicated,” Richie said.

And though ranked choice hasn’t played much of a factor in Berkeley elections, some council members are not very content with the system.

“I don’t personally like it very much but I guess we’re stuck with it,” said Councilmember Susan Wengraf, whose primary concern with the system was educating voters in terms of how it works.

However, this is something the city has been doing for years now, according to city spokesperson Mary Kay Clunies-Ross.

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak also strongly opposes ranked choice, though he acknowledges that the system has made very little impact thus far.

“I have some fundamental problems with ranked choice,” Wozniak said. “But generally it doesn’t make much difference.”

Wozniak said he feels the system is unconstitutional because it manipulates the idea of “one person, one vote.”

Still, though it hasn’t had much of an impact on Berkeley elections, Wozniak acknowledges that ranked choice has some positive aspects. For one, it avoids costly run-off elections, though the last time the city has experienced one was in 2002, according to Clunies-Ross.

Though it may not play much of a role in Berkeley elections, Richie said ranked choice appears to be spreading in the Bay Area. Cities like Albany, Alameda and Vallejo have shown some interest and may consider using the system in their own future elections.

Jaehak Yu is the lead city government reporter. Contact him at jyu@dailycal.org.

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Jan Flatley-Feldman/Staff

UC Berkeley students and city residents turned out at the polls en masse Tuesday night to cast their votes, while just under half of Alameda County’s mail-in and provisional ballots continue to be tabulated.

As of Wednesday, just over half of the votes of people registered to vote in Alameda County had been processed, with only 414,992 votes processed of the 810,836 registered voters countywide, according to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters. Of the processed votes, nearly a quarter of them were mail-in ballots, and a little more than a quarter of the votes were cast in person at polls.

Campus freshman Bryan Chiou said the process of casting his ballot took more than an hour because the line of 100 to 150 people in front of him was wrapped around the building. Chiou said the process by which poll workers confirmed each voter’s eligibility was time-consuming and contributed to the delay.

“I kind of thought about leaving because it was taking so long, but I felt obligated to vote because it was my first time,” Chiou said. “I did have the temptation to walk away at one point, but I ended up voting.”

Mail-in ballots that were dropped off at the polls and provisional ballots are still being processed, according to Alameda County Registrar of Voters Dave Macdonald. He did not have the final voter turnout numbers yet but estimated that the total will be less than the 78 percent of voters who turned out for the 2008 election.

“The election is not over until every single ballot is counted — there is a misconception that provisional ballots only get counted if it is a close vote, but that is not the case,” he said.

Because of the close margins of some of the local ballot measures, the final decision may be delayed because a large percentage of votes are still being processed.

Measure T, which would rezone parts of West Berkeley, was narrowly defeated with 50.19 percent of voters opposed as of midnight Tuesday. However, that number can change, as there is now less than a 26-person difference.

Similarly, election results for rent board candidates have been thrown into flux as the total votes for third, fourth and fifth place candidates remain extremely close and could potentially change when new votes are counted.

The registrar of voters has 28 days to process all the votes, although the process is completed on a relatively quicker timeframe, Macdonald said.

Berkeley city spokesperson Mary Kay Clunies-Ross said the city will be waiting until the registrar has certified the election results before swearing in newly elected officials or implementing voter-approved measures.

Contact Aliyah Mohammed at amohammed@dailycal.org.

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Alameda County Measure A1
Measure A1, which would have established a 25-year tax to raise money for the Oakland Zoo, did not receive the two-thirds supermajority it needed to pass. The measure would have established an annual $12 tax on residential properties and $72 on nonresidential properties.Not all the mail-in and absentee ballots have been counted, but the votes in favor of the bill currently stand at 62.75 percent.

The East Bay Zoological Society, which manages the zoo, previously warned that the zoo would be in trouble without the needed tax revenue.

The Friends of Knowland Park said the group was happy the measure did not pass because it would have allowed the zoo to expand its grounds.

“This is a victory for those who care about protecting our public spaces,” said Ruth Malone, the co-chair of Friends of Knowland Park.

Alameda County Measure B1
The race for Measure B1 is still too close to call. The measure would double Alameda County’s sales tax from a half-cent to a cent on the dollar to help pay for various transportation projects.

The polls currently have support for the measure at 65.63 percent, just below the required two-thirds supermajority. Mail-in and absentee ballots are still being counted.

Arthur Dao, the executive director of the Alameda County Transportation Commission, said he believes the measure will pass.

“As the remaining votes are tallied, we’re hopeful we’ll get some good news,” Dao said. “If it does pass, we’re going to bring transportation into the 21st century.”

Opponents of the measure say that it would hurt the poor by adding new taxes and punishing automobile drivers.

AC Transit Director At Large
Chris Peeples, a 14-year incumbent, defeated retired bus driver Dollene Jones for one of two at-large seats on the AC Transit Board. Peeples won more than 60 percent of the vote and said he wants to continue working on fuel-cell buses.

Peeples was in France on personal business when he found out about his victory.

“It felt very strange to be winning an election while I was 8,000 miles away,” Peeples said.

BART Board of Directors, District 3 and District 7
In District 3, UC Berkeley alumna Rebecca Saltzman beat two other candidates for a seat on the Board of Directors. In District 7, another alumnus, Zakhary Mallett, defeated incumbent Lynette Sweet and two other candidates.

Saltzman said she was “extremely excited” when she found out she won.

“I’ve been working all year for that,” Saltzman said.

Saltzman said she wants to focus on the backlog of badly needed BART maintenance, among other issues.

Likewise, Mallett said he was “pleasantly surprised” with the results.

“I want to be more aggressive about upgrading the access and passage infrastructure for passengers,” Mallett said.