UPDATE: The Contra Costa County Elections Office will release its next round of results at 5 p.m. on Friday. Until all ballots are counted, results will be updated weekly Friday at 5 p.m.
By Mike Kinney
In preliminary results posted after the polls closed on Election Day Tuesday, and with thousands of ballots still left to count, Measure R, the $575 million construction bond measure aimed at upgrading and modernizing West Contra Costa Unified school facilities, had garnered 55.49 percent voter approval, just over the 55 percent needed to pass.
Meanwhile, of 175,813 votes cast, 51 percent of voters rejected Measure J, the half-cent sales tax measure to fund countywide transportation improvements. With only about 112,000 ballots left to count, the measure needing two-thirds voter approval appears to have failed.
Of the ballots left to count, about 82,000 are absentee and 32,000 are provisional and include conditional voter registration.
For the statewide Proposition 13, more voters are against (55.9 percent) than for it. (44.1 percent) in unofficial results, according to preliminary results reported by the California Secretary of State. The $15 billion state construction bond measure aims to modernize public education facilities.
In the race for Democratic County Central Committee-District 1, current DNCCC Chair Maria Alegria has the lead with 18.55 percent of the votes, followed by El Cerrito Councilmember Gabriel Quinto (13.17 percent), former San Pablo mayor and councilmember Genoveva Calloway (12.55 percent), WCCUSD Board of Education member Mister Phillips (11.73 percent), and Richmond community advocate Cesar Zepeda (10.98 percent).
CORRECTION: The story has been updated to reflect correct information that Measure J needs two-thirds voter approval to pass.
