Validation Demystified
Bond & Levy Election
Validations
Passing a levy or bond issue isn’t a simple matter of majority
rules. State law makes levy and bond issues tougher to pass by
requiring a “super majority.”
By State
Constitutional (Article 7 Section 2) mandate, such propositions
must be approved by not less than a sixty percent majority of the
voters voting on the proposition rather than a simple majority. In
addition, they have validation requirements.
Levy Validation
To validate, levies must pass with a 60% favorable majority. They
must also win a minimum number of YES votes based on the
number of people who voted in the previous November
General Election within the school or fire, etc., district. That
minimum number of YES votes is determined by taking 60% of 40% of the
people who voted in the most recent General Election.
Example: If there were 10,000 votes cast in the last General Election
| 10,000 |
|
| x 40% |
|
| 4000 |
|
| x 60% |
|
| 2,400 |
= Minimum number of "yes" votes required to
validate. |
To pass the levy, the district needs to have at least 2,400 YES
votes, even if only a total of 2,500 people vote on the levy.
Bond Validation
Bond issues must validate two ways. They must pass with a 60%
favorable majority, or 60% of ballots cast are “Yes” votes. In
addition, they have a voter turnout requirement that levies don’t
have. The turnout must equal 40% of the voters who cast
ballots in the last General Election. So, a bond measure could get the
required number of YES votes, but could still fail if not enough
people vote in the election.
Example: 10,000 people voted in the XYZ School District in last
year’s November General Election.
To pass this bond issue, the XYZ District must also ensure that at
least 4,000 people vote in the bond election. Of those, at least 2,400
must vote YES.
To better understand validation requirements, it may be helpful to
read the State
Constitution (Article 7, Section2). To determine validation
requirements it will also be necessary to view the votes cast by
taxing districts in the last General Election.
