Voters in San Francisco will decide on Tuesday whether to recall three members of the school board. Experts say the level of voter turnout may offer clues about whether the effort will succeed.
San Franciscans are voting to recall school board President Gabriela López, Vice President Faauuga Moliga and Commissioner Alison Collins due to disputes over their handling of school reopenings, school renamings and admissions at Lowell High School. The three board members on the ballot are the only officials who have served long enough to qualify for a recall.
As of Monday, just over 115,000 ballots were returned for an early turnout rate of just below 23%, about half the number of people who voted early in November's recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom — a figure which suggests recall backers have the advantage.
"The people who are proposing the recall, who are bothering to gather the signatures, want a campaign, they're going to turnout and vote," Joshua Spivak, recall scholar at the Hugh L. Carey Institute For Government Reform at Wagner College, told KCBS Radio.
"I strongly suspect that's the case, that the people who have voted are very much in favor of the recall generally," he explained.
Spivak said backers of the recall may also pick up some momentum because they are pointing to specific grievances.
"The fact that this one really is about policy more than personality, or issues of trying to gain control of partisan politics, probably helps the people who are proponents of the recall," he explained.
"Most recalls are not partisan issues, they are policy issues."
Voting ends at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday.
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