California: Despite lack of challengers, special election still on for Senate seat | SCV Signal

A special election with a price tag of more than $1 million is on for March, even though only one candidate filed to put her name on the ballot, state and county elections officials said Thursday. The name of Republican Sharon Runner will be the only one to appear on on the certified list of candidates sent out by the California Secretary of State’s office. The special primary election for the 21st Senate District seat vacated by Congressman Steve Knight is scheduled March 17, according to state and county elections officials. “It’s mandated we still have an election, even though there’s one candidate,” said Regina Ip, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Office of Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. The special election carries about a $1.4 million price tag in Los Angeles County, Ip said.

California: A Gerrymandering Comeback in California … via Arizona? | KQED

Several months of quiet whispers have quickly turned into a resounding buzz — and a nervous buzz, no less — about a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court that questions whether it’s constitutional for independent state commissions to have the sole power to draw political district maps. The case is centered on Arizona, but the buzz being heard on this side of the Colorado River arises from the fear that if a lower court’s ruling is thrown out, California may very well be next in the return to partisan congressional gerrymandering. It explains why everyone from legal scholars to three former California governors is asking to be heard before the nation’s highest court.

California: Santa Clara County: First steps suggested to start fixing beleaguered election system | San Jose Mercury News

With an upgrade to its outdated equipment years away, Santa Clara County officials suggested Wednesday taking steps now to remedy the beleaguered election system from malfunctions encountered in past elections. At a special committee meeting on Wednesday, supervisors Joe Simitian and Ken Yeager said the Registrar of Voter's Office should look into providing staff 24-hours around the clock during the election period to speed up notoriously slow ballot counting and improve communications with the public -- a situation that left voters confused and wary about the status of recounts. They also suggested developing a system that would require an automatic recount when races come down to the wire. "We're all of the same mind that we've got to see some real progress," said Simitian. "We can't be having this same conversation every two years."

California: 3 former California governors back independent redistricting | Los Angeles Times

Three former California governors are wading in to an Arizona elections case before the Supreme Court that could have major implications on how California draws its congressional and legislative districts. Former Govs. George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with the California Chamber of Commerce, GOP mega-donor Charles T. Munger Jr. and entrepreneur Bill Mundell, submitted a brief late Friday stating their support for an independent commission that crafts a state's districts, rather than restricting the task to state legislatures. Arizona, like California, has an independent panel that draws the state's districts. But Arizona's legislature wants to take the job back and has challenged the constitutionality of allowing such a committee to determine district boundaries. They argue that legislators alone have that power. The case is set to go before the Supreme Court in March.

California: Los Angeles County’s reluctance to vote by mail hurting candidates, causes | San Francisco Chronicle

For California Democrats, sprawling Los Angeles County is the scary-looking guard dog that just won’t bark. In November’s election, California’s largest county was dead last in turnout, with just over 31 percent of registered voters casting ballots. And even that dismal number was a huge improvement from the June primary, when Los Angeles County turnout was 16.9 percent — also the lowest in the state. The dismal local turnout makes a difference, particularly to Southern California politicians who aspire to statewide office, like former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former Rep. Jane Harman. Both have been mentioned as potential candidates for the seat that Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer will be giving up after 2016. Plenty of politicians, consultants and academics blame the county’s turnout woes on the mail. “Los Angeles County is still suffering the effects of not embracing vote-by-mail years ago,” said Douglas Herman, a Democratic political consultant in Pasadena.

California: Youths seek to lower voting age to 16 in San Francisco | San Francisco Examiner

San Francisco teenager Joshua Cardenas really wanted to vote in the Nov. 4 election. It was packed with local measures, such as raising The City's minimum wage and extending funding for youth services, which the lifelong resident would have voted for. But the Riordan High School senior was barred from hitting the polls because he did not turn 18 until two weeks after the election. Instead, Cardenas has opted to try to lower The City's legal voting age to 16 -- a change that has gained the support of at least two supervisors. On Monday, the effort cleared its first hurdle to potentially go before San Francisco voters as early as November. Cardenas, a member of the San Francisco Youth Commission since August 2013, has authored a resolution that urges Mayor Ed Lee and the Board of Supervisors to explore lowering the voting age to 16 for municipal and school district elections. The Youth Commission, currently comprised of 15 commissioners ages 12 to 23, supported the resolution in a 14-1 vote Monday night.

California: Padilla has long to-do list as California’s election boss | The Sacramento Bee

When he is sworn in Monday as California secretary of state, Alex Padilla, a former two-term state senator and possible candidate for higher office, will assume one of the most-maligned posts in state government. The secretary of state’s campaign-finance disclosure system is old and confusing, businesses complain about filing delays and a federally required computerized voter registration list is years behind schedule, contributing to a national survey recently ranking California second-to-last in election administration. Padilla, a Democrat from Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, said fixing all three will be early priorities after he takes office. “Coming in, I know there’s a lot that I want to help get accomplished and pushed forward. That’s the approach, the urgency I will bring,” said Padilla, who recently completed two terms in the state Senate and is regularly mentioned as a possible future contender for governor or U.S. Senate.

California: State’s ballot initiative process remade, and both parties agree | San Francisco Chronicle

After more than a century in California’s political spotlight, the state’s initiative process will be getting a major revise next year. Even more surprising, both Democrats and Republicans in the famously partisan Legislature are happy to see it happen. While Republicans made up most of the limited opposition when SB1253 made its way through the Legislature, the two GOP leaders, state Sen. Bob Huff of Diamond Bar (Los Angeles County) and Assembly member Kristin Olsen of Modesto, both voted “aye.” “It was a bipartisan effort,” said former state Sen. Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento, the Democrat who authored the bill. “People like the initiative process but believe it can be improved.” The measure opens the way for increased collaboration between lawmakers and backers of initiatives by requiring the Legislature to hold a joint public hearing on a proposed initiative as soon as 25 percent of the required signatures are collected. It also calls for the attorney general to open a 30-day public review before approving an initiative for circulation and lets supporters amend the initiative during that time. “The No. 1 benefit is this allows two sources to work together to solve a problem or make an initiative better,” Steinberg said.

California: Mullin introduces bill to reform California’s ‘flawed’ recount laws | San Jose Mercury News

Assemblyman Kevin Mullin introduced legislation Monday to overhaul California's system for recounting votes in tightly contested statewide elections, claiming the June primary in the state controller's race highlighted flaws in the current format. The bill would require the state to pay for a full recount in any election involving a statewide office or ballot measure when the margin of victory is one tenth of 1 percent or less. The law presently allows candidates to recount the tallies of individual counties as long as their campaigns foot the bill. Mullin, D-South San Francisco, introduced similar legislation this summer, but the bill stalled. The new bill, AB 44, would also call for automatic recounts in presidential elections.

California: Lawmaker proposes to revamp California recount rules | Sacramento Bee

Assemblyman Kevin Mullin said Friday he will introduce another bill requiring automatic recounts in extremely close statewide races, citing the confusion and discord during last summer’s brief recount in the June primary for state controller. Mullin, D-South San Francisco, carried legislation last August that would have required automatic recounts in any statewide race where the margin of victory is one-tenth of one percent or less. The bill, though, stalled in the state Senate after bogging down in partisan fighting. In a press release, Mullin said he will introduce another recount proposal Monday. It would require a state-funded hand recount for any statewide race where the margin of victory is one-tenth of one percent or less and would take effect for the 2016 elections.

California: Los Angeles voters won’t be offered cash prizes in March city election | Los Angeles Times

A controversial proposal to offer cash prizes to Los Angeles voters is dead — at least for next year's city elections. Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson said this week that he wanted more time to consider the idea of using money or other gifts to lure voters to the polls. For now, he is looking to persuade voters on March 3 to move city elections from odd- to even-numbered years — when state and federal contests are held — beginning in 2020. "I don't want to overload the public," Wesson said. "So I think we're just going to focus on" the change in election dates. Wesson and his colleagues have spent much of this year looking at different proposals for improving L.A.'s dismal voter turnout, which fell to 23% in last year's mayoral runoff election. Three months ago, the Ethics Commission caused a small uproar by recommending that Wesson's Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee look at a lottery — one with prizes of $25,000 or $50,000 — as a tool for enticing Angelenos to cast ballots.

California: Officials ponder all-mail voting | Sacramento Bee

When all the ballots are finally tallied from last week’s election, the proportion of Californians voting by mail is expected to break the record set in 2012, the first time more than half of the state’s electorate voted absentee. The uptick has more Californians pushing for the state to go all the way and ditch traditional polling places. Washington, Colorado and Oregon require all of their elections to be run entirely by mail, and at least 19 others permit some of their elections to be all mail, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. County elections officials have touted the potential increase in voter interest and significant savings from avoiding the task of recruiting and training polling place workers. And some believe an all-mail system could even help speed up and avoid some overtime ballot-counting. “I say, ‘yes, please,’” said Jill LaVine, the registrar of voters in Sacramento County. “I would love to go all vote-by-mail.” LaVine compared overseeing the current system to running two elections at the same time – one via the Postal Service and another at polling places. The latter process is so resource-heavy that her office essentially “shuts down” counting absentee votes the Friday before an election, leaving a huge pile of ballots to count in the days and weeks afterward, LaVine said. “I could direct all my money and equipment to vote-by-mail,” she said, noting that the rural counties of Alpine and Sierra issue mail ballots to everyone. “All of the expenses and problems of running two elections would be off the table. It would be smooth.” LaVine suggests it also could generate speedier election results by giving officials more time to count mail ballots before an election day. In California, seven congressional and legislative races remained undecided for a week as tens of thousands of late-arriving mail and “provisional” ballots were being tallied.

California: Tight races again put spotlight on California recount rules | The Sacramento Bee

Four months after the photo finish in the California controller primary put a spotlight on the state’s unique recount rules, possible recounts loom in a handful of close legislative and congressional races on last week’s ballot. In Sacramento County’s 7th Congressional District, Rep. Ami Bera has cut the lead of Republican former Rep. Doug Ose to 530 votes, just 0.35 percent of the total counted so far, with thousands of late-arriving mail and provisional ballots still to process. Bera’s campaign has already launched a drive to raise money for a possible recount. The next official vote tally is expected Wednesday.

California: Los Angeles officials to consider ballot measures to change election years | Los Angeles Times

Can changing when Los Angeles votes reverse a long-term decline in turnout? Los Angeles lawmakers Friday are set to consider letting voters decide whether city elections should be moved to even-numbered years. The City Council has asked its lawyers to prepare two measures for the March 3 ballot aligning city and school board elections with state and federal contests. But some activists are warning that such a move could cause voter participation to decrease even more. Hans Johnson, president of the East Area Progressive Democrats, pointed to results from the June primary, which showed slightly more than 16% of L.A. voters casting ballots. That's down 7 percentage points from the May 2013 mayoral runoff, when around 23% of voters took part. "This process is being rushed forward with a lack of review of the implications," Johnson said.

California: Half of California voters getting mail ballots | The Sacramento Bee

More than one-half of California’s 17.6 million registered voters have requested vote-by-mail ballots for Tuesday’s election. The question now is: Will they use them? Tuesday was the cutoff for voters to apply for a vote-by-mail ballot, barring special circumstances such as members of the military being called to active duty. A tally by the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials pegged the number of vote-by-mail applicants earlier this week at 8.8 million, based on a survey of counties. About five percent of those ballots had been returned to election officials, amid fears that next week’s election could set a record for low turnout. Paul Mitchell of Political Data, Inc., which provides voter-registration data to campaigns, said Wednesday that more than 9 million vote-by-mail ballots have gone out.

California: Heavy ballots may need extra postage; still getting delivered to elections office | Redding Searchlight

Blame the October moisture. But some Shasta County voters are paying an extra 21 cents in postage — this on top of the 49-cent stamp — to mail their absentee ballots. Voters who have mailed their ballot with 49-cent postage only, fear not. The ballots — no matter that they are slightly heavier than in the bone-dry summer — will get to the Shasta County Elections Office by Nov. 4. Cathy Darling Allen, county clerk and registrar of voters, said the U.S. Postal Service will still deliver, and her office is picking up the difference for any extra postage. “They already know about this issue,” she said of the postal service. “They understand that the purple and green ballots” are being dropped off “and they get them to us as fast as they can.” To date, the elections office has mailed 61,741 ballots and 14,675 ballots have been returned.

California: Los Angeles County takes step toward voting system overhaul | Los Angeles Times

Supervisors took a significant step Tuesday to overhaul Los Angeles County's antiquated ink-based balloting system by approving a $15-million contract with Palo Alto consultant Ideo for the design of a more modern way to record votes. Elections officials -- who must serve about 4.8 million registered voters scattered across 5,000 precincts -- began planning for a new system five years ago. The process was guided by an advisory committee that included local city clerks, voting rights and open government advocates, and officials from the local Democratic and Republican parties. The current system is known as InkaVote and requires voters to mark a paper ballot with their selections. Under the new system, projected to roll out in 2020, voters would make their selections using a touch screen, and the voting machine would then print a paper ballot to be tallied.

California: Alameda County Alerts Berkeley Voters to Ballot Snafu | KQED

Alameda County elections officials are sending out cards to alert 27,000 voters in Berkeley that they’ve received mail-in ballots imprinted with the incorrect date for next month’s election. The address window in Alameda County mail-in ballots displaying incorrect date for this year’s election. The ballots arrived in voters’ mailboxes last month. In addition to the legend “Official Election Balloting Material,” the ballots’ address window says, “Election Day November 5, 2014.”

California: Los Angeles could move to even-year elections to increase voter turnout | Los Angeles Daily News

In an effort to increase voter turnout, the Los Angeles City Council Wednesday called for a proposal moving city elections to June and November of even-numbered years. The 12-1 vote, with Councilman Bernard Parks dissenting, asked that the proposal be drafted in time to submit to voters at the March 2015 election. The shift from odd- to even-numbered years would take effect with the 2020 elections. It would allow incumbent officials at that time to serve an extra 18 months. “If voting was a business, we would be going bankrupt,” said Darry Sragow, a USC professor and a former campaign consultant. “The first thing is the way people vote should be a reflection of the way they lead their lives. Everything in our lives is different with cell phones, the Internet, where we work, how we work. “Participation rates are steadily declining. It is not the people’s fault. It is the fault of a system that no longer reflects their day-to-day existence.”

California: Public database of county by county elections costs in the works for California | California Forward

Dwindling turnout at the polls demonstrates a clear need for additional electoral reforms aimed at increasing California's chronically low voter participation rate. Identifying which policies deliver the biggest bang for the buck is the hard part. But it’s about to get a lot easier. The California Association of Clerks and Election Officials (CACEO) is building a public online database of elections costs to better inform policies and procedures and to identify and share best practices with a grant awarded from the James Irvine Foundation. This is a big deal! Here’s why. A slew of election reforms are proposed each year. When reviewing a measure, one of the first things legislators want to know is: What’s the cost? “We’ve never been able to answer that question statewide,” said Neal Kelley, Orange County Registrar of Voters and CACEO President. “Now we’re going to be at that point where we can, and I think it’s really important to be able to be part of the discussion when it comes to new legislation.” For years, Doug Chapin, Director of the Future of California Elections, has referred to election costs as the “big white whale” of election administration. California’s diversity and sheer size has hindered any quest to capture the elusive and valuable data.

California: Santa Clara County: Print shop flub compounds ballot error in two school board races | San Jose Mercury News

A flub on sample ballots for two school board races that were mailed to thousands of voters in Santa Clara and Gilroy was compounded when the printing vendor sent out official ballots repeating the error. In addition, most residents in the Santa Clara Unified and Gavilan Community College districts have yet to receive the correct ballots because the vendor didn't send them out last week with the other vote-by-mail ballots throughout the county. The initial error, which cropped up just over two weeks ago, involved a mistake at the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters that resulted in sample ballots going out which omitted some candidates and their statements. "That was a programming error on our part in the election database," said Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters Shannon Bushey.

California: Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters Admits More Mistakes for Mail-in Ballots | San Jose Inside

Just weeks after the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters re-printed a slew of sample ballots missing entire races and candidate info, the agency has to deal with another batch of faulty election literature. Earlier this month, the county had to re-print and re-mail 100,000 sample ballots because of entire sections missing candidates from the Gavilan Joint Community College District and Santa Clara Unified School District races. The county corrected the slip-up and alerted voters by snail mail, email and phone calls. But the printing company for absentee ballots used proofs from those older samples, running off 1,007 mail-in ballots missing the same information. Voters have already received those faulty ballots.

California: Same-party races force hard choices | Sacremento Bee

John McAtee, a 52-year-old voter from Elk Grove, isn’t happy about the state of his ballot this year. In two legislative contests, the Republican will not have a candidate of his own party to choose from. For state Assembly, he can pick between Democrats Jim Cooper and Darrell Fong. For state Senate, his choices are Democrats Roger Dickinson and Richard Pan. He considers the scenario one drawback of living in a heavily Democratic area. “I am not moving, but you take your lumps,” McAtee said. A reverse scenario is playing out in a Roseville-centered congressional district, where veteran conservative Rep. Tom McClintock is challenged by fellow Republican Art Moore. More than 116,000 Democrats there have no opportunity to select one of their own. Democrat Michael Adams said he’s met Moore at district events and also has attended McClintock’s town-hall meetings. Adams, a 68-year-old resident of Roseville, said the upcoming congressional contest boils down to this: “Voting for the lesser of two evils is what I have to do.” In California, 25 same-party contests populate the fall ballot, intraparty battles made possible by voter-approved Proposition 14 in June 2010. Under the measure, the top two candidates regardless of party advance to the general election.

California: Paper is Still the Tech of Choice for California Elections | KQED

In a state that that takes pride in being on the technological cutting edge, most California voters will mark paper ballots with ink by Nov. 4, whether they vote at their polling place or by mail. The state’s reliance on paper would have seemed unlikely 15 years ago. California’s then-Secretary of State Bill Jones floated a radical idea in 1999: let people vote online. He convened task force to look into the possibility. “Here we are in the dot com boom,” said David Jefferson, a computer scientist who chaired the task force’s Technology Committee. “It’s an exciting thing. Of course we would all like to vote online. Let’s just figure out how to deliver it to the people of California.” Jefferson now works on one of the world’s fastest computers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He recalls when the online voting project started to fall apart. “In the course of that study, which took place over several months, doubts began to creep in,” he said. “And then we began to find more and more flaws.”

California: Gov. Brown vetoes bill to expand California’s Voting Rights Act | Associated Press

An effort to expand California’s Voting Rights Act to allow claims of racial discrimination in the configuration of election districts has been vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown. The legislation, SB1365 by state Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima (Los Angeles County), was passed in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act. That law had required state and local governments with a history of racial discrimination — including Monterey, Yuba, Kings and Merced counties in California — to obtain approval from the Justice Department or a federal court before making any changes in their voting rules. California’s Voting Rights Act, signed by Gov. Gray Davis in 2001, allows minority groups to challenge “at-large” elections. All candidates in at-large elections compete for votes in an entire city, county or special district, increasing the likelihood of control by a white majority that votes cohesively. Suits filed under the law have prompted more than 100 local governments and agencies to switch to district elections, with a better chance of minority representation.

California: Major challenges await Bowen’s successor in California | Sacramento Bee

Voting equipment around the state is breaking down. There is limited money for new systems. A complex statewide voter registration database has been years in the making. And while hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars change hands every day in California, the state’s public-disclosure system confuses searchers and occasionally stops working. Whoever gets the keys to California’s secretary of state’s office in January will inherit a lengthy to-do list for the post’s role overseeing voting and elections, its most public responsibility. The office also handles businesses filings. Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who recently disclosed that she is battling depression, has defended her tenure and blamed politics for would-be successors’ criticism of her office during this year’s campaign. Budget cuts during the recession and a lack of new funding have hampered efforts to improve some programs, she has said, such as the Cal-Access campaign-finance website. But whether it is Republican Pete Peterson or Democrat Alex Padilla, California’s next secretary of state will need to hit the ground running, county registrars and other experts say.

California: Mail-in-ballot rejections analyzed in study | UC Davis News Service

Voting by mail surpassed 50 percent of votes cast in a general election in California for the first time in 2012. A new study shows that nearly 69,000 mailed ballots, or about 1 percent, were not counted, and why they were rejected. The top three reasons mail-in ballots were rejected: not arriving on time, not being signed or because signatures could not be verified, according to the study to be released Sept. 29 by the California Civic Engagement Project at the University of California, Davis, Center for Regional Change. "California has one of the highest mail ballot rejection rates in the country," said study author Mindy Romero, director of the California Civic Engagement Project. "Although 1 percent may not seem very high, that's tens of thousands of people whose votes were not counted. And these votes could make the difference in close elections."

California: Vendor glitch won’t delay San Bernardino ballot printing | San Bernardino County Sun

The county has dropped the company it has been using for ballot printing and mailing after the company failed to get new equipment certified by the Secretary of State in time for Monday’s printing launch for the November election. County supervisors, during a special meeting Thursday, voted 3-0, with supervisors Gary Ovitt and Robert Lovingood absent, to approve a purchase order, not to exceed $700,000, with Washington-based K&H Integrated Print Solutions, which the county previously contracted with, county spokesman David Wert said.

California: Activists appeal dismissal of voting rights lawsuit in Whittier | Los Angeles Times

Activists in Whittier on Monday filed an appeal to a judge's dismissal this month of their lawsuit challenging the city's system of electing its officials. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael M. Johnson on Thursday granted the city's request to dismiss  the suit alleging that  its at-large method of electing council members violated the California Voting Rights Act. When voters gave the city permission this year to switch to electing officials by geographic district, the lawsuit became moot, Johnson said in dismissing it. Whittier is one of several California cities  with significant minority populations but few or no minority elected officials. Activists have been suing such cities, school districts and other local government bodies, claiming the at-large elections deprive minorities of opportunities to elect a representative of their choice.  Several jurisdictions have switched to district elections when confronted with evidence of racially polarized voting.

California: State Sen. Wright jail sentence could trigger special election | Los Angeles Times

The sentencing of Democratic state Sen. Roderick D. Wright to 90 days in jail and a lifetime ban from public office on voting fraud charges Friday could end up requiring a special election but is unlikely to have a significant impact on the ability of Democrats to regain a supermajority in the Senate, officials said. "Starting today, he's barred from holding any future elective office," said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office. If the state Senate wants to remove Wright from his current office, it would have to vote to expel him, she said. Wright has not said whether he will resign, but the Senate leadership warned him earlier this year that he would be expelled if he is sentenced to jail and does not step down.