Orange Unified School District special election (2016)

• Elections
  • Candidates and results
  • Endorsements
• What was at stake?
  • Report a story for this election
  • Candidate survey
• About the district
• See also
  • Recent news
  • References

Nov. 2016 → ← 2014
Orange Unified School District Elections
Special election date:
March 1, 2016
Enrollment (13–14):
29,750 students

One of the seven seats on the Orange Unified School District Board of Education was up for special election for a two-year term on March 1, 2016. Andrea Yamasaki defeated Gregory Salas for the seat vacated by former member Diane Singer. The election was held by mail-in ballot.

Singer, a Democrat, led the effort to gather signatures in order to force the special election. In September 2015, the board of education appointed Salas, a Republican, to the seat she vacated. Salas was forced to leave that position when enough signatures were deemed valid, and the special election was added to the ballot. Salas was later required to change his candidate statement, after board member Mark Wayland filed a lawsuit challenging his ability to call himself an incumbent after serving 38 days on the board in a provisional appointment.

See also: What's at stake in the Orange Unified special election?

Elections

Voter and candidate information

The Orange Unified Board of Education consists of seven members elected to four-year terms. Seats are up for election on a staggered basis every even-numbered year in November. The special election in Trustee Area 1 was up for election by mail-in ballot on March 1, 2016, to fill a vacant term for two years. There was no primary election. The Trustee Area 1, 4, 5, and 7 seats were up for election in November 2014, and the Trustee Area 2, 3, and 6 seats were up for general election in November 2016.

To elect a member to the vacant seat on the board rather than allow the board to appoint someone, supporters of the special election had to collect 1,567 signatures from district residents. The signatures were confirmed valid in October 2015.

Trustee Area 1

Results

Orange Unified School District, Trustee Area 1 Special Election, 2-Year Term, 2016
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Andrea Yamasaki	74.87%	15,588
Gregory Salas	25.13%	5,232
Total Votes		20,820
Source: Orange County Registrar of Voters, "OUSD Special Vacancy Election: Official Results for election," accessed March 21, 2016

Candidates

Gregory Salas		Andrea Yamasaki
	Graduate, Fullerton College and DeVry University Territory sales manager, Med One Capital

Additional elections on the ballot

No other elections were on the ballot with the Orange Unified School District special election.

Key deadlines

The following dates were key deadlines for the Orange Unified School District special election in 2016:

Deadline	Event
November 9, 2015 - December 4, 2015	Candidate filing period
December 31, 2015	First pre-election campaign finance reporting deadline
January 4, 2016 - February 16, 2016	Write-in candidate filing period
February 15, 2016	Voter registration deadline
February 18, 2016	Second pre-election campaign finance reporting deadline
March 1, 2016	Special election day

Endorsements

Andrea Yamasaki received endorsements from the following organizations and elected officials:

• Orange Unified Education Association
• Community Advancement through Renovation for Education (CARE)
• Anaheim City Council member Kris Murray
• Anaheim City Council member Jordan Brandman
• Orange City Council member Kimberlee Nichols
• Orange City Council member Mike Alvarez
• Orange Unified Board of Education member Mark Wayland
• Orange Unified Board of Education member Kathryn A. Moffat

Yamasaki also received endorsements from a number of community members. A list of her supporters can be found here.

Do you know of an official or organization that endorsed a candidate in this race? Let Ballotpedia know by email at editor@ballotpedia.org.

Campaign finance

The Orange County Registrar of Voters does not publish and freely disclose school board candidate campaign finance reports that were filed by paper in their office. Ballotpedia staffers directly requested this information, but the municipal office was unable to provide electronic copies of the filed paperwork.

Past elections

Information about earlier elections can be found by clicking [show] at the right.

2014 Trustee Area 1 This election was canceled due to lack of opposition. Trustee Area 1 incumbent Diane Singer was re-elected by default. Trustee Area 4 Orange Unified School District, Trustee Area 4 General Election, 4-year term, 2014 Party Candidate Vote % Votes      Nonpartisan Kathryn A. Moffat Incumbent 61.3% 23,959      Nonpartisan Larry D. Cohn 24.5% 9,568      Nonpartisan Brian Harrington 14.2% 5,569 Total Votes 39,096 Source: Orange County Registrar of Voters, "Official Results for Election: November 4, 2014," accessed December 23, 2014 Trustee Area 5 Orange Unified School District, Trustee Area 5 General Election, 4-year term, 2014 Party Candidate Vote % Votes      Nonpartisan Timothy Surridge Incumbent 53.7% 20,829      Nonpartisan Florice Hoffman 46.3% 17,934 Total Votes 38,763 Source: Orange County Registrar of Voters, "Official Results for Election: November 4, 2014," accessed December 23, 2014 Trustee Area 7 Orange Unified School District, Trustee Area 7 General Election, 4-year term, 2014 Party Candidate Vote % Votes      Nonpartisan Rick Ledesma Incumbent 56.6% 22,235      Nonpartisan Tim Perez 32.6% 12,812      Nonpartisan Steve Rocco 10.7% 4,213 Total Votes 39,260 Source: Orange County Registrar of Voters, "Official Results for Election: November 4, 2014," accessed December 23, 2014 2012 Trustee Area 2 This election was canceled due to lack of opposition. Incumbent John Ortega was re-elected by default. Trustee Area 3 Orange Unified School District, Trustee Area 3 General Election, 4-year term, 2012 Party Candidate Vote % Votes      Nonpartisan Alexia L. Deligianni Incumbent 55% 37,742      Nonpartisan Robert "Bob" Ausmus 33.4% 22,903      Nonpartisan Michele Gabbard 11.6% 7,937 Total Votes 68,582 Source: Orange County Registrar of Voters, "Election Results Archives: 2012 General Election," accessed July 30, 2014 Trustee Area 6 Orange Unified School District, Trustee Area 6 General Election, 4-year term, 2012 Party Candidate Vote % Votes      Nonpartisan Mark Wayland Incumbent 59.6% 40,348      Nonpartisan Tracey L. Colombo Curtis 40.4% 27,397 Total Votes 67,745 Source: Orange County Registrar of Voters, "Election Results Archives: 2012 General Election," accessed July 30, 2014

What was at stake?

2016

Issues in the election

Judge requires Salas to amend candidate statement

In his original candidate statement for the special election on March 1, 2016, Gregory Salas stated that he was a former governing board member and that he had been endorsed by board member Mark Wayland. He also asked voters to return him to the board. Wayland disputed the claim that his vote to appoint Salas to a vacant position on the board was an endorsement, and he disagreed with Salas's right to call himself an incumbent after serving for 38 days in a provisional appointment. Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard Lissebrink agreed with him.

Lissebrink ordered Salas to take out the statements saying that Wayland had endorsed him and that he had been a former board member. Salas was also required to change his request to voters to ask them to "elect," rather than "return" him to the board. Salas agreed to the changes and had a new candidate statement ready before the judge's ruling.

Singer leads effort to force special election

Former Trustee Area 1 representative Diane Singer

Diane Singer resigned from the Orange Unified School District Board of Education in August 2015, after she moved outside of Trustee Area 1, the district she used to represent. In September 2015, board members announced they would choose one of the following three candidates to fill her vacant seat: Chris Nguyen, Gregory Salas and Andrea Yamasaki. Both Nguyen and Salas had ties to the Republican Party, and Yamasaki was a self-identified Democrat. The conservative-majority board appointed Salas to Singer's position.

Singer, a Democrat, was elected to the nonpartisan board in 2006, after defeating Nguyen. Singer organized with other residents in the district to start a petition drive in case either Nguyen or Salas were appointed. California law allows citizens to petition for a special election within 30 days of a board appointment. When Salas was appointed to the board, those in favor of a special election began circulating petitions. They submitted 3,670 signatures, surpassing the 1,587 needed to get the special election on the ballot. Salas was required to leave the position he was appointed to, and a special election was set for March 1, 2016.

Estimates forecasted it would cost the district between $326,000 and $385,000. Salas and Yamasaki were the only candidates who filed to run, which pit the board's choice and the special election supporters' choice against each other. Yamasaki won the election by receiving nearly the 75 percent of votes cast.

Candidate survey

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About the district

See also: Orange Unified School District, California

Orange Unified School District is located in Orange County, Calif.

The Orange Unified School District is located in Orange County in southern California. The county seat is Santa Ana. Orange County was home to 3,145,515 residents in 2014, according to the United States Census Bureau. The district was the 36th-largest school district in the state in the 2013–2014 school year and served 29,750 students.

Demographics

Orange County outperformed California as a whole in terms of higher education achievement in 2013. The United States Census Bureau found that 36.8 percent of county residents aged 25 years and older had attained a bachelor's degree, compared to 30.7 percent of state residents. The median household income for Orange County was $75,422, compared to $61,094 for the entire state. The percentage of people below poverty level was 12.4 percent, while it was 15.9 percent statewide.

Racial Demographics, 2014
Race	Orange County (%)	California (%)
White	73.5	73.2
Black or African American	2.1	6.5
American Indian and Alaska Native	1.1	1.7
Asian	19.6	14.4
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander	0.4	0.5
Two or more races	3.3	3.7
Hispanic or Latino	34.3	38.6

Presidential Voting Pattern, Orange County
Year	Democratic Vote	Republican Vote
2012	512,440	582,332
2008	549,558	579,064
2004	419,239	641,832
2000	391,819	541,299

Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.

Recent news

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms 'Orange Unified School District' 'California'. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

Orange Unified School District special election (2016) - Google News

See also

Orange Unified School District	California	School Boards
List of school districts in California	California school board elections, 2016 Public education in California Local ballot measures, California	School board elections, 2016 School board elections, 2015 School board election data analysis, 2016 School board election data analysis, 2015

External links

• Orange Unified School District
• Orange County Registrar of Voters