Oakland Unified School District, California, elections (2020)

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2022
2018
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Oakland Unified School District elections

Filing deadline
August 7, 2020
General election date
November 3, 2020
Enrollment ('17-'18)
50,090 students

Four seats on the Oakland Unified School District school board in California were up for general election on November 3, 2020. The filing deadline for this election was August 7, 2020.

Election procedure changes in 2020

See also: Changes to election dates, procedures, and administration in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020

Ballotpedia provided comprehensive coverage of how election dates and procedures changed in 2020. While the majority of changes occurred as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, some changes occurred for other reasons.

California modified its absentee/mail-in and in-person voting procedures for the November 3, 2020, general election as follows:

  • Absentee/mail-in voting: Mail-in ballots were sent to all registered voters in the general election.
  • In-person voting: Counties were authorized to consolidate precincts and defer opening voting centers until the third day before the election.

For a full timeline about election modifications made in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, click here.

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Elections

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Candidates and results

District 1

General election

General election for Oakland Unified Board of Education District 1

The ranked-choice voting election was won by Sam Davis in round 2 . The results of Round are displayed below. To see the results of other rounds, use the dropdown menu above to select a round and the table will update.


Total votes: 34,256
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

District 3

General election

General election for Oakland Unified Board of Education District 3

The ranked-choice voting election was won by VanCedric Williams in round 4 . The results of Round are displayed below. To see the results of other rounds, use the dropdown menu above to select a round and the table will update.


Total votes: 28,349
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.

District 5

General election

General election for Oakland Unified Board of Education District 5

The ranked-choice voting election was won by Mike Hutchinson in round 3 . The results of Round are displayed below. To see the results of other rounds, use the dropdown menu above to select a round and the table will update.


Total votes: 16,916
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.

District 7

General election

General election for Oakland Unified Board of Education District 7

The ranked-choice voting election was won by Clifford Thompson in round 4 . The results of Round are displayed below. To see the results of other rounds, use the dropdown menu above to select a round and the table will update.


Total votes: 18,026
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.

Additional elections on the ballot

See also: California elections, 2020

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Ranked-choice voting

Overview

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Beyond the Headlines: What is ranked-choice voting?
View other episodes here.

How ranked-choice voting works

Broadly speaking, the ranked-choice voting process unfolds as follows for single-winner elections:

  1. Voters rank the candidates for a given office by preference on their ballots.
  2. If a candidate wins an outright majority of first-preference votes (i.e., 50 percent plus one), he or she will be declared the winner.
  3. If, on the other hand, no candidates win an outright majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated.
  4. All first-preference votes for the failed candidate are eliminated, lifting the second-preference choices indicated on those ballots.
  5. A new tally is conducted to determine whether any candidate has won an outright majority of the adjusted voters.
  6. The process is repeated until a candidate wins a majority of votes cast.

Example

Assume that there are four candidates for mayor in a hypothetical city. The table below presents the raw first-preference vote totals for each candidate.

Raw first-preference vote tallies in a hypothetical mayoral race
Candidate First-preference votes Percentage
Candidate A 475 46.34%
Candidate B 300 29.27%
Candidate C 175 17.07%
Candidate D 75 7.32%

In the above scenario, no candidate won an outright majority of first-preference votes. As a result, the candidate (Candidate D) with the smallest number of first-preference votes is eliminated. The ballots that listed candidate D as the first preference are adjusted, raising their second-preference candidates. Assume that, of the 75 first-preference votes for Candidate D, 50 listed Candidate A as their second preference and 25 listed Candidate B. The adjusted vote totals would be as follows:

Adjusted vote tallies in a hypothetical mayoral race
Candidate Adjusted first-preference votes Percentage
Candidate A 525 51.22%
Candidate B 325 31.71%
Candidate C 175 17.07%

On the second tally, Candidate A secured 51.22 percent of the vote, thereby winning the election.

Note: The above is a simplified example used for illustrative purposes. Specific procedures vary by jurisdiction and according to the nature of the election (i.e., whether it is a single-winner or multi-winner contest).

Ranked-choice voting in California

At the time of the 2020 election, California did not use ranked-choice voting on a statewide basis. However, four California cities did use ranked-choice voting: Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and San Leandro.

San Francisco voted to adopt ranked-choice voting for municipal elections in 2002. Oakland voted in favor of adopting ranked-choice voting in 2006, while Berkeley and San Leandro switched to ranked-choice voting in 2010.[1] As of the 2020 election, ranked-choice voting was only used to elect local officials in the four cities; elections for state and federal office did not use ranked-choice voting.[2][3]

What was at stake?

Report a story for this election

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Candidate survey

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Click here to view or fill out the survey.

About the district

See also: Oakland Unified School District, California

The Oakland Unified School District is located in Oakland, California. The district served 50,090 students during the 2017-2018 school year.[4]

Pivot Counties

See also: Pivot Counties by state

There are no Pivot Counties in California. Pivot Counties are counties that voted for Barack Obama (D) in 2008 and 2012 and for Donald Trump (R) in 2016. Altogether, the nation had 206 Pivot Counties, with most being concentrated in upper midwestern and northeastern states.

In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton (D) won California with 61.7 percent of the vote. Donald Trump (R) received 31.6 percent. In presidential elections between 1900 and 2016, California voted Republican 53.33 percent of the time and Democratic 43.33 percent of the time. In the five presidential elections between 2000 and 2016, California voted Democratic all five times. In 2016, California had 55 electoral votes, which was the most of any state. The 55 electoral votes were 10.2 percent of all 538 available electoral votes and were 20.4 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election.

Presidential results by legislative district

The following table details results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections by state Assembly districts in California. Click [show] to expand the table. The "Obama," "Romney," "Clinton," and "Trump" columns describe the percent of the vote each presidential candidate received in the district. The "2012 Margin" and "2016 Margin" columns describe the margin of victory between the two presidential candidates in those years. The "Party Control" column notes which party held that seat heading into the 2018 general election. Data on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections broken down by state legislative districts was compiled by Daily Kos.[5][6]

In 2012, Barack Obama (D) won 58 out of 80 state Assembly districts in California with an average margin of victory of 38.4 points. In 2016, Hillary Clinton (D) won 66 out of 80 state Assembly districts in California with an average margin of victory of 40.3 points. Clinton won 11 districts controlled by Republicans heading into the 2018 elections.
In 2012, Mitt Romney (R) won 22 out of 80 state Assembly districts in California with an average margin of victory of 12.2 points. In 2016, Donald Trump (R) won 14 out of 80 state Assembly districts in California with an average margin of victory of 13 points.


See also

Oakland Unified School District California School Boards
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External links

Footnotes