Bellingham Politics and Economics: How the BPS 501 Bond Vote played Out (updated with Final match back and Results)

Both BPS 501 bond and MBS 507 levy have passed.

Bellingham Public School district 501 (90) 2017 precincts outlined in Black and White. Color scale for City and County are 2016 precinct boundaries colored blue to red representing the Clinton - Trump difference. Color and outlines demarcate changes between 2016 and 2017 precincts. Click to enlarge. An online map of precincts from the WC Election office is here.

There were two school district financing measures on your ballot this week. If you live in either the Mt. Baker 507 or Bellingham 501 school districts you could and did vote for:

Bellingham School District 501 Proposition 2018-1 General Obligation Bonds - $155,000,000
Mt Baker School District 507 Proposition 2018-2 Facilities and Technology Levy

For more information on the BPS 501 Bond itself please see More Information at bottom of this post. The rest of this post contains statistical data simulating the BPS 501 bond vote from 2016 and 2017 election results. Matchback totals and projections have been updated with the final results. Both the Bond and Levy passed.

Final night results:

AVReturnDate Results February Special Election 2016 and 2018. Click to Enlarge.

February Special Election Data (from past and current WC Elections)

Date Precincts Voted Registered TOpct
Date Precincts Voted Registered TOpct
02/12/2012 119 50454 117137 43.07
02/11/2014 49 13571 31063 43.69
02/10/2015 47 10708 31551 33.94
02/09/2016 177 46683 129126 36.15
02/13/2018 103 25665 78787 32.58 # certified

Votes in Play

From Wednesday's matchbacks, there are 69,837 residents voting in BPS 501 and 78,787 in the election as a whole. BPS 501 2018-1 is a bond. It needed to win by 60%. MBS 507 is a levy so only a simple majority was required. I will look at the BPS 501 vote for the rest of this post:

b18[!duplicated(RegistrationNumber) & PrecinctID %in% B501$PrecinctID,.N]
[1] 69837 # BPS 501 registered voters

b18[!duplicated(RegistrationNumber),.N]
[1] 78787 # BPS 501 + MBS 507 registered voters

Trump + Johnson vs. Clinton + Stein

The 90* BPS 501 precincts total as below for the 2016 GE*:

TJ (Trump + Johnson)
CS (Clinton + Stein)

a1[,.(TJ_actual=fsum(TJ),CS_actual=fsum(CS))]

TJ_actual CS_actual
1: 14883 41701

* Statistical notes:

Ferndale's Precinct 509 has 4 BPS 501 voters this election; all south Slater. I tabulate precincts without those four votes below. There are seven precincts with partial returns in this election (134,135,163,165,211,225,509). County wide there were 3666 untabulated write in votes for the 2016 GE Presidential election.

If I multiply Wednesday match back ("Good") totals by each precinct percentage margin for TJ or CS, I have the following projected totals:

a1[,.(TJ_projected=as.integer(fsum(N * TJ_pct)),CS_projected=as.integer(fsum(N * CS_pct)))]

TJ_projected CS_projected
1: 6004 16191

or

16191 / (6004 + 16191)
[1] 0.7294886

Only 2 precincts of these 89 had victories for Trump + Johnson in 2016:

StateCode TJ CS
1: WM_157 34 29
2: WM_165 49 40

Buchanan vs. Robinson 2017

In the much lower turnout of GE 2017, Buchanan (Bu) vs. Robinson (Ro) had these totals for BPS 501 precincts:

a1_[,.(Bu_actual=fsum(Bu),Ro_actual=fsum(Ro))]

Bu_actual Ro_actual
1: 21142 10643

If I multiply 'Wednesday matchback ("Good") totals by each precinct percentage margin for Bu or Ro, I have the following projected totals:

a1_[,.(Buchanan=as.integer(fsum(N * Buchanan_pct)),Robinson=as.integer(fsum(N * Robinson_pct)))]

Buchanan Robinson
1: 15046 7810

or

15046/(7810 + 15046)
[1] 0.6582954

9 of the 89 precincts had victories for Mary Kay Robinson in 2017:

a1_d_[,.(StateCode,diff=(Buchanan - Robinson ),Buchanan,Robinson)][diff < 0,.(StateCode,Buchanan,Robinson)]

StateCode Buchanan Robinson
1: WM_135 40 44
2: WM_157 26 37
3: WM_159 29 42
4: WM_162 80 85
5: WM_165 33 56
6: WM_168 122 151
7: WM_170 66 68
8: WM_173 66 78
9: WM_211 81 87

Returns

The Final returns resulted in 70% victory for BPS 501 bond:

More Information on the BPS 501 Bond:

Bellingham Politics and Economics

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Monday, February 12, 2018

How the BPS 501 Bond Vote played Out (updated with Final match back and Results)