BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Palo Alto teachers’ union is encouraging voters to leave the second spot on their ballot blank in the school board race and engage in a practice called “bullet voting.”
The union is backing classroom aide Linda Henıgın, who is running for one of two open seats against Shazam co-founder Avery Wang and tech executive John Craig.
“Many voters naturally assume they have to pick two candidates, or feel compelled to fill in a second bubble simply because the space is there,” union president Tom Culbertson said in a newsletter on Friday.
But casting a second vote for Wang or Craig could push them ahead of Henigin in a tight race for the second seat, Culbertson said.
“The most effective way to protect her seat is to cast your vote solely for Linda Henigin and leave the second choice blank,” Culbertson said. “That ensures 100% of your ballot’s power is concentrated behind keeping an educator ally on our school board.”
The tactic, called “bullet voting,” was an issue in the 2012 election when four candidates ran for three seats.
Owen Byrd, an attorney and city commissioner who was active in local politics, encouraged voters to vote for only candidate Ken Dauber.
Dauber’s opponents criticized Byrd for not being democratic and said that voters should complete the ballot.
“It doesn’t sit right with me. Everyone has to make their own decision, candidate Heidi Emberling said at the time.
Dauber lost the race but ended up getting elected in 2014.
…”keeping an educator ally on our school board.” This sums it up perfectly. Shana’s bias was an issue for the past four years. Do we want to continue this conflict of interest? Representation of educators is the role of the unions, not the board.
I agree with you 100%.
I only voted for one candidate for the City Council.
I also voted for two candidates for the school board and neither of them were female.
In my humble opinion, I do not see the race being close enough that this “bullet voting” tactic will make the difference, thanks for playing though. The taxpayers are absolutely fed up and want real systematic change from the rotten Don Austin culture and quid pro system of old. A vote for Mr. Craig and Mr. Wang will do just that. Time for some real talk – PAUSD has cancer that could become terminal if not fixed soon. John and Avery are outsiders that have chosen to step forward and get an honest assessment and will do so transparently with the community. They will bravely survey the actual damage, work hard to find solutions and then follow through on implementing real changes to turn the district around. How does a relatively small California school district, in a very affluent area manufacture a self-inflicted financial debacle, going +$100 million surplus to -$33 million cuts by end of 2026-27 fiscal year in order to stave off a county takeover and even get a New York Post article about it? When you google school district CBO, the explicit definition is “PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR FINANCIAL STABILITY AND OPERATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE”. No financial stability, no infrastructure. That was/is Charen’s only job! On the “operations side”, she actually promoted a person who should have never even gotten an interview with PAUSD and is mainly responsible for an ongoing lawsuit in Santa Clara County Superior Court against PAUSD that could potentially cost another million dollars or more as well. For those that are keeping score at home, that’s a F- for both responsibilities. Moving on…….. Who the hell negotiated/offered the unions an unsustainable financial deal on behalf of the Palo Alto taxpayers? Lastly……. Hey Jason, nothing screams leadership like being completely tone deaf about Don’s leftovers who are responsible for the bad union contracts that have put us -$33 in the hole. Talking about things being in the rearview is pretty rich coming from you. Please refresh the Palo Alto taxpaying voter’s memories, what got you clipped 10 months into a 4-year contract? Anyone?…. Anyone?…… Bueller?…….. At least you’ll have a job when good people are laid off and district services suffer and inevitably ripple into all classrooms. Do not forget that the people mainly responsible for putting PAUSD metaphoric financial car in a ditch are still your drivers, so it’s extremely relevant to your employment status as well. Looking forward, passing a tax of some kind will be imperative to potentially prevent PAUSD from entering a tailspin. If you truly want to earn back the trust of the Palo Alto taxpayers, there will need to be transparency, acknowledgement of mistakes and actual accountability. Tick tock.
How come only “woke” candidates resort to bullet voting? I guess they’ll never win an actual majority, so they use this tactic.
If Linda Henigin were ethical, she would denounce bullet voting. But she hasn’t shown much in the way of ethics so far — lying about her position on de-laning, using district resources to advertise, and giving school credit to kids who work on her campaign.
You forgot unlimited raises for district employees. I think that’s unethical. Of course union president Tom Culbertson is suggesting this “bullet voting” maneuver. Culbertson says the most ridiculous things when he does say things, which is all the time.
Oh, and being a math teacher.
PAUSD is a jobs, retirement and healthcare provider that does education on the side. Don’t vote for Henigin who will make the problem worse.
After Henigin got caught by the Post using Schoology to solicit for volunteers, somebody took down her posts on that forum quickly. Then the new superintendent warned in his Friday weekly memo that people shouldn’t use district resources to run campaigns, as if you had to tell people that was wrong. If she hadn’t been caught, imagine how far it would have gone.
The superintendent, school board, administration and teachers are all backing Henigin because she promised higher salaries right from the beginning. And she’s going to stop any attempts to get rid of the dead wood at 25 Churchill. That’s why the superintendent took down her Scholoogy posts so quickly. He wanted the scandal to go away fast, hoping it would be forgotten about. I’m sure all of the records showing how much the administration helped Henigin have been erased just in case any nosy journalist files a PRA. The administration, union and school board have been helping their favorite candidates for years, but nobody really looked into it before.