The two-thirds problem: how Measure E got 62% and still failed

If Measure H were a regular tax measure, this argument would already be over. RVSD’s previous attempt — Measure E in May 2025 — got 62.53% Yes.[1] In any normal majoritarian context, 62% is a clear win. In a city council vote it’s a landslide. In a presidential election it’s a record.

For a California parcel tax, 62% is a loss.

The reason is Proposition 218. Passed in 1996, it extended Proposition 13’s protections to make all special taxes — including parcel taxes — require a two-thirds (66.67%) vote for approval.[2] The same constitutional architecture that limits property-tax growth in California also makes the workaround districts use to compensate institutionally hard to raise.

Understanding the two-thirds problem is the difference between “Measure E was rejected by voters” and “Measure E got more support than most California ballot measures and still didn’t clear the supermajority bar.” That’s the framing voters need going into June 2.

What 62% actually meant in vote terms

Per the Marin County Registrar’s certified results:[1]

  • Yes: 4,390 votes (62.53%)
  • No: 2,631 votes (37.47%)
  • Total ballots cast: 7,021

Marin elections director Lynda Roberts told the Marin IJ the measure fell short by “about 300 more yes votes.”[3] That number works one of two ways depending on how you interpret it:

Persuasion math (flipping No to Yes): With ~7,021 total ballots fixed, you need 4,681 Yes votes to clear two-thirds. That’s 291 more Yes votes than were cast — meaning 291 No voters would need to switch to Yes.

Turnout math (no flips, just more Yes): With No fixed at 2,631, you need 5,262 Yes votes (since 5,262 / 7,893 = 66.67%). That’s 872 more Yes votes than were cast — meaning Yes would have to enlarge the Yes electorate by about 20% without bringing in any new No voters.

These are two very different mobilization strategies, and the real-world Measure H math is some mix of both.

The real-world mix

Any new turnout in a higher-turnout June 2 primary will bring some No voters along with new Yes voters. The May 2025 Yes/No split was 62.53/37.47. If new turnout for June 2026 tracks the same split:

  • Every additional 1,000 ballots adds ~625 Yes and ~375 No
  • The Yes share doesn’t change — it stays at 62.5%
  • A pure turnout strategy mathematically can’t reach 66.67%

Yes needs both turnout and persuasion. The question is what kind of voter is movable.

The voter universe

RVSD covers roughly 18,450 registered voters across Fairfax, San Anselmo, Sleepy Hollow, and the Woodacre portion of San Geronimo Valley.[4] The May 2025 special election drew 7,021 ballots — about 38% turnout, which is high for a vote-by-mail-only special but well below what a regular June primary will produce.

California primaries typically run 50–60% turnout in Marin. That would mean somewhere between 9,200 and 11,000 ballots cast on June 2 — a 30–55% larger electorate than May 2025.

Where does the new turnout come from? Mostly from voters who skipped the special election but reliably vote in regular elections. Some of those skip-the-special voters are Yes-leaning (parents, teachers, neighbors who’d have voted Yes if it were on a regular ballot). Some are No-leaning. The Yes/No split of new turnout is the central tactical question.

The 33% No coalition is real and durable

The honest read of November 2024 is that there’s a ~33–37% bloc of Marin voters that consistently says No to expansive local-government action when they think the ask is too aggressive. The same band of voters rejected three separate rent-control measures in November 2024:

  • Fairfax Measure I (rent-ordinance repeal): 63.19% Yes to repeal
  • San Anselmo Measure N (rent-cap ordinance): 63% No
  • San Anselmo Measure O (just-cause eviction): 66.2% No
  • Larkspur Measure K (stricter rent ordinance): 62% No
  • California Prop 33 (statewide repeal of Costa-Hawkins): 62% No statewide[5]

That’s a remarkably consistent ~63% / 37% pattern across multiple separate measures. And it’s the same magnitude as the May 2025 Measure E result.

These aren’t identical voters across all those measures — the No-on-rent-control coalition skews differently than the No-on-school-tax coalition — but the size of the localized “say No to the institutional consensus” bloc is similar. About 33–37% of the Marin Ross Valley electorate will vote No on whichever measure is in front of them when the ask feels too big.

Why Measure H can break through

Three things distinguish the Measure H situation from May 2025:

1. Higher-turnout electorate. The June 2 primary will draw a meaningfully larger ballot pool than the May 2025 special. New turnout that breaks the 62.5/37.5 historical split — even modestly — closes some of the gap. The Marin voters who skipped a vote-by-mail-only special-election bill are disproportionately the lower-engagement, harder-to-poll, harder-to-mobilize universe; many of them are reliable Yes voters when the question is on a regular ballot.

2. Documented closure-and-receivership stakes. The contingency plan presented in January 2026 made the cost of No specific in a way it wasn’t in May 2025. Closure of two elementary schools, August 2028 receivership timeline, $4.3M in cuts.[6] That’s more concrete than “school programs will suffer.” It changes the calculus for some persuadable voters.

3. Procedural complaints from 2025 are addressed. Flat per-parcel rate, plain ballot language, no special-election cost, oversight committee, no-admin/no-pension restrictions. (Our post on six things that changed covers this in detail.) Voters who voted No on Measure E because of how it was structured rather than what it asked for now have a procedurally cleaner Yes option.

What this means for your vote

If you’re already a Yes voter, the math says: the most useful thing you can do between now and June 2 is talk to two or three neighbors. Not strangers — neighbors. The voters Measure H needs to win are not the 37% who reflexively vote No on tax measures. They’re the 5–10% in the middle who are persuadable based on whether the case is laid out carefully and the stakes feel real.

Marin school parcel taxes pass about 88% of the time across the historical record, with a median 73.4% Yes vote.[7] Measure E’s 62.53% was a supermajority shortfall in a county that consistently approves these measures — not a community rejection. The base rate is on Yes’s side. The work is closing the last 4–5 points.

That’s why we recommend a Yes vote on Measure H — and why we hope the people reading this will share it with someone who’s still working through the decision.

Sources

  1. Ballotpedia: RVSD Measure E (May 2025) — certified 62.53% Yes (4,390) / 37.47% No (2,631) result.

  2. California Constitution, Article XIIIC and XIIID (Proposition 218, 1996) —

    official text

    establishing the two-thirds voter approval requirement for special taxes.

  3. Marin IJ (May 14, 2025): “Ross Valley School District parcel tax measure fails” — Lynda Roberts’ “about 300 more yes votes” framing.

  4. RVSD voter universe of approximately 18,450 registered voters, per

    Marin Post’s May 2025 turnout analysis

    citing 18,452 and

    The Ballot Book

    citing 18,490. Marin County Registrar publishes registration by precinct rather than by school district.

  5. Marin IJ (Nov 5, 2024): “Voters in three Marin municipalities reject stronger rent control” — Larkspur K, San Anselmo N+O, Fairfax I; statewide Prop 33 result.

  6. Marin IJ (Jan 31, 2026): “Ross Valley School District drafts $4.3M in budget cuts” — three-tier MCOE-required contingency plan.

  7. Marin County Office of Education: parcel-tax election history (since 2010) — 31 of 35 measures passed (~88%); median 73.4% Yes vote.
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