As of yesterday, roughly 481,700 people were registered to vote in San Francisco (which is down from 513,400 people in November of 2016); 320,700 mail-in ballots had been issued for today’s election; and 80,600 ballots had been returned.

We’ll run the early results for the real estate related measures, including Regional Measure 3 (Bay Area Traffic Relief Plan), Proposition D (Tax on Commercial Rents to fund housing and homelessness services), and Proposition F (City-funded legal representation for tenants in eviction lawsuits), Proposition G (Parcel Tax for SF Unified School District) and of course, the next Mayor of San Francisco, as soon as they’re released this evening.

If you have already voted, thank you. If you haven’t, the polls are open and will remain so until 8pm.

37 thoughts on “#Vote”
        1. Ok, let’s chose Countries that are not “White” but have compulsory voting: Brazil, Peru, Singapore . My point is, people in this Country have become complacent and if you do not exercise your right to vote, you have no right to complain about the system.

  1. What’s the mechanism by which the # of registered voters declines? Out-migrants are automatically disenrolled and in-migrants don’t or can’t enroll?

    1. Apparently there is some effort to coordinate voter databases w/i California tho, how effective it is or what, if anything is done for interstate migration I can’t say.

      The number of voters can decline if eligibles are replaced by non-eligibles (e.g. non-citizens) or new residents simply don’t register…too busy in the office designing apps, or whatever.

      1. Shows the importance making registration easy. I actually surprised that even you register when renewing your license and can remain on permanent vote by mail list, that many people drop out.

  2. California has joined the ranks of other States that allows you to register to vote on the same day of the election.

  3. FYI most commercial leases require the tenant to pay all taxes. So measure D is basically a flat 1.7% rent increase on every business. If a business uses 250 square feet per employee, and is paying $5.50 per square foot, the tax will be a flat tax of $280 per employee per year.

    By contrast, the controversial Seattle head tax would collect $275 per employee, only from businesses grossing more than $20 million in annual revenue, or about three percent of the businesses in the city.

    1. Landlords already charge as much as the market will bear. Taxes that appear to be on tenants come out of the landlord’s end, eventually. I support additional outright rent taxes for both commercial and residential.

    2. Sold my commercial property back in 2016 in anticipation of some kind of commercial tax. My leases have a provision tenants pay a share of the property taxes. However, the ability of retail tenants to survive taxes with the costs of doing business gets more difficult each year. And if they worry, I worry. The decision I made to cash out was simple.

      1. Exactly. This will, if passed, make doing business in SF even more difficult and expensive. It’s already too expensive – a large government agency just announced it’s relocating out of San Francisco to Vancouver because of the high costs here. Good for me as I own investment property there. It’s not only commercial RE investing that is increasingly problematic in SF – residential investments are even more problematic and could take another hit after the November election.

        1. My goodness : a “govt agency” leaving their own country…that IS rejection! Or are they moving to Vancouver WA?

          1. *Ahem* Vancouver, WA; not BC. NPS is vacating $2mil/yr FiDI office space for free space at an old army base.

          1. Funny you say that. Bay Area Council survey is just out. 46 percent of Bay Area residents surveyed said they want to move out of the area within the next few years. That number is up from 34 percent in 2016 and 40 percent 2017. Number one reason cited is cost of living.

          2. Thus it has always been. And others will move here to take their place, probably at a higher income level.

        2. Pass on investing in WA or any other state. There are better opportunities globally and I like liquidity.

    1. Relatively low, but not in comparison to the June 2014 election with a 13.3% turnout or the November 2013 election with 13.7% (perfect timing for the “Wall on the Waterfront” nimbys to carry the day). Some recent stats below (source data; note “% Turnout” represents mailed ballots rather than returned ballots…that info needs to be sussed out from the rightmost columns)

      Date Votes Cast % of Registered
      11/8/2016 286,219 55.7%
      6/7/2016 159,679 34.1%
      11/3/2015 112,685 25.2%
      11/4/2014 137,550 31.5%
      6/3/2014 57,990 13.3%
      11/5/2013 60,111 13.7%

  4. Already voted in May via absentee ballot. Straight line no on any additional taxes until the local and state government can demonstrate fiscal responsibility.

      1. I had discussions about my conservative voting stance in a highly liberal city and state. It was suggested instead of voting Republican candidates, vote in right leaning Democrats so I don’t throw away my vote.

        On issue based voting, easy enough to do. As for candidates, CA has a decent history of Republican governors so I don’t see it wasting my vote.

  5. What’s the odds making on measure 3 the bridge toll bill? Sounds like a tough sell.

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