Bob Dunning: Measure E is money in the bank

POLLS, POLLS AND MORE POLLS … while it was hard to get the folks at Gallup interested in polling Davis voters about Measure E, that didn’t stop local groups from doing some surveying of their own … one such poll, which apparently called every household in town except mine, came up with 372 votes in favor of Measure E and only 108 against, for a winning percentage of 77.5 … that’s consistent, if somewhat better, than the 73.4 percent I reported for Measure E after interviewing three folks from Chico outside Nugget one day last week … then again, the same phone survey received 605 hang-ups, which is more than the “yes” and the “no” votes combined …

Even with the two-thirds requirement for passage, Measure E is money in the bank at this point … apparently, Davis voters are taking to heart the district’s warning that without additional funding the 2012-13 public school year will end somewhere between the end of Hanukkah and the first light of Christmas Day …

POLL PICKS PETERSON … to no one’s surprise, the same poll (see above) has Nancy Peterson leading a three-horse race for two school board seats … Peterson picked up 195 positive nods as either the first or second choice of voters, with incumbent Susan Lovenburg second with 174 and Alan Fernandes still in contention with 134 … also to no one’s surprise, Jose Granda was far back with 55 and Claire Sherman last with 49 … Granda may have felt he’d pick up 99 percent of the “No on E” vote given his staunch opposition to the measure, but apparently those voters aren’t making the connection he hoped for …

THE NUMBERS BEHIND THE NUMBERS … truth be told, our happy pollsters dialed up 10,000 local numbers, which is certain to result in some sort of workman’s comp settlement for sore fingertips … but, in addition to the compelling numbers reported above, our public-minded callers reached 4,336 answering machines, received 2,109 busy signals, 795 disconnected numbers, 62 fax machines, 484 no answers and 22 people who attempted to order a pizza … 52.9 percent of the answering machines contained clever messages before the beep …

ABOUT THAT TWO-THIRDS REQUIREMENT … I’m one of those who has never understood why we need two-thirds approval for anything, no less a tax measure … if you do the simple math, such a rule allows one-third (plus one) of the electorate to thwart the will of the other two-thirds … anti-tax folks love it and probably would push the requirement to three-quarters if they could, but it clearly gives a “no” voter twice as much voting power as a “yes” voter … when it comes to taxes, the concept of majority rule is a myth …

SPEAKING OF MATH … last time we faced a parcel tax, one of our esteemed leaders confused the electorate by proclaiming it needed “two-thirds plus one” … a common mistake … the law says it needs two-thirds, period … however, if a measure requires a simple majority, then the winning formula is indeed “50 percent, plus one” …

— Reach Bob Dunning at bdunning@davisenterprise.net