Countywide : Candidates Criticize Tie-Breaker

A number of school board candidates are criticizing a new policy in several school districts that would settle an election tie by drawing lots instead of holding a runoff.

Trustees in Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District and Magnolia School District in Anaheim this week approved the policy, citing the extra cost of holding a runoff election in the event that two candidates capture the same number of votes.

Several other districts, including Saddleback Valley Unified, Westminster and Ocean View school districts, also have the same policy.

“To think of spending $25,000 to hold a special election, we could use that money to equip a lot of computers” with improved software, said Craig Olson, a trustee in the Placentia-Yorba Linda district.

But Placentia-Yorba Linda trustee William Kielty, who is running for reelection and who voted against the policy, said the cost of holding a runoff is not a lot of money to determine who the voters want on the school board.

“We don’t consider it for any other level of government,” Kielty said. Drawing lots “is not part of the democratic process.”

Pamela S. Rush, a candidate for the Saddleback Valley Unified Board of Trustees, said drawing lots to break a tie invalidates the entire election.

“We might as well not have an election,” Rush said. “The candidates might just as well put their names in a hat now.”

As far back as 1963, school board elections resulting in a tie were decided by drawing lots, said Barry Green, a lawyer with a Pasadena law firm that represents school districts.

In 1976, state law was changed to allow school districts to hold runoff elections when two or more candidates received the same number of votes, district administrators said.

Ties in school board elections are rare. Bev Warner, a spokeswoman for the Orange County registrar of voters office said she could not remember a tie since she started working at the office in 1988. But the state requires districts to adopt a policy to decide ties before an election is held.

However, several districts in the county, including Tustin Unified and Garden Grove Unified, do not have a policy in place, which Green and other school officials say could result in legal action if there is a tie.