If history is any indicator, a Sarasota County property tax will be renewed this month with broad public support. My most recent Where The Votes Are analysis, prepared for a special event earlier this week, shows that when the measure has gone before voters before, it’s earned passage with relative ease. In fact, when you look at what might be weak points in area demographics, they don’t put the cracks in the support wall one might expect.

Afraid Sarasota’s greyer-than-average retiree population doesn’t care about the schools? More than 73 percent of the voting electorate in 2014 was over the age of 60, yet 76.9 percent of voters said YES to keeping a tax on their expensive homes to support schools where other people’s children get an education.  Nervous a special House race where Democrats upset Republicans shows a need for change? Actually, numbers from the past show Democrats get more excited about education measures, and the 2014 election marked a rare moment when Democrats outperformed Republicans in terms of turnout. But don’t worry about the Republicans either, because based on sheer volume there were still more than 4,200 more Republicans who voted than Dems and the measure still passed.

The support for the school referendum four years ago proved deep and broad. The ballot question earned majority support in 98 of 99 Sarasota County precincts, losing in just one small Nokomis precinct where only 18 voters cast ballots. Working class voters in North Port, wealthy retirees on Longboat, urbanites in Downtown Sarasota and minority voters in Newtown all seemed to agree on at least this one issue.

So why, then, do groups like Citizens for Better Schools continue to express concern about its passage everytime? At our event, speakers Pam Truitt and Dan DeLeo, supporters of the measure, stressed the revenue raised remains critical to staffing our local schools, especially when it comes to non-mandated programs like music. So the stakes are high even if risk of a loss seems low.

But the other part remains the nature of special elections. And in many ways, the school referendum illustrates what’s good and bad about holding a measure in March when no major candidate campaigns help drive voters to polls. Only 16.6 percent of eligible voters in 2014, some 45,462 voters out of 272,927 possible ones, participated in the election in 2014.  That was way down from 2010, when 27.18 percent of voters cast ballots, and 70,347 weighed in on the school referendum.

What’s the rest of the county thing? Who knows. But asking people when they really showed up to vote for president whether they also support the School Board pocketed some extra property tax feels like a risky strategy for obvious reasons. DeLeo figures educating voters on this issue while a gubernatorial or presidential election plays out in mailboxes and TV ads would prove much more costly for his political committee. And he’s likely right.

Then again, we’d know where the community as a whole stands, hopefully removing anxiety every time the issue comes up for a vote. I know some leaders are nervous recent tumult around a new superintendent may play poorly with voters this year. I doubt it, just because it’s so hard to imagine the 53.8-percent swing required to change the outcome.

That said, there’s 65,432 voters who registered in Sarasota County since the special election in 2014. And there’s roughly 30,360 voters who were on the rolls in 2014 but are now dead or gone. It’s not necessarily the some voter pool that existed back when. To a degree, every special election becomes a crapshoot.

Final thought? Take nothing for granted. Get out and vote on March 20.

Jacob Ogles is contributing senior editor for SRQ Media Group.