Wildomar's Measure Z 'Yes Vote' Increases

“In my experience, the trend usually holds,” said Kari Verjil, Riverside County Registrar of Voters.

Those words are good news to Wildomar parks’ supporters who are anxiously waiting to see if their early victory on Measure Z holds.

Thursday night the registrar’s office posted updated election results that added a little more cushion to the Yes on Z count.

There has been reason to worry.

Z required a two-thirds majority and the tally had come in at 66.77 percent, which is enough to pass.

But the registrar’s office still had another 105,000 vote-by-mail, 60,000 provisional, and 18,000 damaged ballots that needed counting.

At 5:22 p.m. Thursday, the registrar's office posted that it had counted another 19,000 vote-by-mail ballots and that pushed the Yes on Z vote up to 66.83 percent.

“It should be ok,” Verjil said of the upward trend.

At press time, Verjil could not say how many of the outstanding ballots may be from Wildomar, but she explained that the remaining uncounted vote-by-mail ballots are expected to be tallied by Saturday night; the damaged ballots will take longer, and the provisional ballots may take up to several weeks.

[Click here to see the latest election results updates.]

The registrar’s office has until Dec. 4 to certify the final results, and any requests for recounts must come within 5 days of that date, Verjil said.

According to the latest results from the registrar's office, 8,201 voters cast a ballot on Measure Z: 5,481 voted yes, while 2,720 said no to the measure that asked Wildomar voters if they are willing to pay an annual $28 special tax to fund their city parks. If the measure were to fail, the city contends there is not enough money in its budget to open its three parks.

In 2011, a similar initiative -- Measure D -- was put to voters but failed to pass. In that special election, fewer than 4,000 Wildomar voters cast a ballot.