Majority Voted for at Least One Growth Measure

More than 63% of city voters cast ballots favoring at least one of the two slow-growth propositions on the Nov. 8 ballot, according to a statistical analysis of voting patterns released Tuesday by an adviser to Citizens for Limited Growth.

The complex analysis, which will be submitted for publication in an academic journal, shows that 63.4% of the city’s voters cast ballots for Proposition H, Proposition J or both, said Richard Carson, a UC San Diego faculty member who worked for the slow-growth citizen group that sponsored Proposition J.

Substantial Losses

Both measures were defeated by substantial margins in the Nov. 8 election. Their backers have claimed that a majority of city residents favor growth control but that both measures were defeated when proponents split their votes between them.

Attempts to prove that point were frustrated when county Registrar of Voters Conny McCormack refused a request to analyze the ballots. City Clerk Charles Abdelnour on Monday asked McCormack to reconsider that decision.

Using statistical formulas and precinct tabulations of the vote, Carson and UC San Diego colleague Glenn Sueyoshi claimed that 22.3% of voters cast ballots in favor of both Propositions H and J, while 36.6% voted against both measures.

Another 22.2% voted for Proposition H and against Proposition J, while 18.9% voted against Proposition H but for Proposition J, the study claimed. Carson said the margin of error in the study is plus or minus 1%.

City Council Challenged

Carson challenged the San Diego City Council to hire a statistician to verify the results.

“This is a pure mathematical problem. We don’t have to make any assumptions,” Carson said Tuesday. “They can hire anyone, and they’ll get the same results.”

The analysis was released a day after preliminary results of a poll commissioned by the City Council showed substantial support for many of the elements contained in Proposition H, and a day before today’s specially scheduled council workshop on the future of growth management.