California: ‘Top-Two’ Election Change in California Upends Races | NYTimes.com

Running against the Vietnam War, Representative Pete Stark entered Congress the year Richard M. Nixon was re-elected president. Since then, ensconced in Democratic strongholds here in the Bay Area, Mr. Stark was easily re-elected 19 times. Ricky Gill, a Republican, is trying to unseat Representative Jerry McNerney, a Democrat running in a redrawn district in the Central Valley. But Mr. Stark, 80, the dean of California’s Congressional delegation, is facing a serious challenge for the first time. That is because Eric Swalwell, a fellow Democrat who became a city councilman less than two years ago in Dublin, his hometown near here, came just a few points behind Mr. Stark in the primary Now Mr. Swalwell gets to carry the fight into November — thanks to a new primary system in California under which the top two vote getters advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. “I wouldn’t have had a chance before,” Mr. Swalwell, 31, said before a recent afternoon and evening of campaigning.

California: Gov. Jerry Brown signs Election Day voter registration bill into law | San Jose Mercury News

Californians will be able to register to vote as late as Election Day, though not for a few years yet, under a bill signed Monday by Gov. Jerry Brown. The Golden State just last week implemented online voter registration, so as some states enact voter ID laws placing new strictures on voter access, California is heading in the opposite direction. AB 1436 by Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-West Hollywood, will let a Californian vote with a provisional ballot if he or she presents a properly completed registration form at his or her county elections office in the 14 days up to and including Election Day. This law won’t take effect until the Secretary of State certifies VoteCal, the new statewide voter database; that’s expected to happen in 2015. The deadline to register for this November’s election remains Monday, Oct. 22. Under the new law, a voter’s registration information must match data on file with the California Department of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration; if not, the voter will be issued a unique identification number in order to confirm his or her eligibility before the ballot is counted. Fraud on such a form would be punishable by up to a year in jail and/or a $25,000 fine. The governor also signed bills Monday letting family members from the same household drop off each other’s vote-by-mail ballots at polling places, and letting county elections officials use information from credit-reporting.

California: Some Question The Tactics Of The Election Integrity Project In San Diego | KPBS.org

Between now and October 6th the Election Integrity Project has scheduled at least nine training seminars in San Diego County. The national organization is known for examining voter rolls, and they were present at many polling places in San Diego during the June primary. They say they’re watching out for voter fraud. But critics say they’re trying to intimidate voters. Linda Paine, president of the group in California, said poll watchers in California found many polls where things went fine. “On the other hand,” she said, “we saw what appeared to be policies and procedures in existence that opened the door to the potential of voter fraud.”

California: Bill Extends California Vote-Counting Deadline | The Associated Press

California would allow three extra days for mail-in ballots to be accepted by elections officials under a bill approved by the state Senate. Democratic Sen. Lou Correa of Anaheim says AB562 is needed because mail delivery may be delayed after the closure of five mail processing centers in California. The Senate passed the bill 28-9 Friday. It was headed to the Assembly for a final vote.

California: Major Victory For Voting Rights Advocates As California Legislature Approves Election Day Registration | ThinkProgress

As voter suppression laws spread across the country, voting rights advocates can take heart: the biggest state in the nation is on the cusp of passing a major voter protection initiative. Election Day Registration (EDR), which allows citizens to register up to and on Election Day, passed the California State Senate today by a party-line vote of 23-13. AB 1436 had passed the State Assembly in May 47-26. Under current law, Californians cannot register to vote in the final two weeks before an election, just as many Americans are beginning to tune in. EDR will eliminate that deadline, ensuring that no citizen is disenfranchised because he or she wasn’t registered beforehand.

California: Voting by mail jumps, altering campaigns | North County Times

More Californians are bypassing the polling place in favor of voting by mail, changing campaign dynamics but helping to identify the winners and losers early in the night in the first count of ballots. The growth of what is known as “convenience voters” was evident in the June 5 primary, when a whopping 65 percent of Golden State residents made their choices via mail ballot. San Diego County mirrored the statewide trend, also coming in at 65 percent. In adjoining Riverside County, more than 70 percent of voters chose the mail method. Voting by mail greatly increases the number of early voters, requiring campaigns to make sure they reach those people weeks before the official Election Day. “No longer can campaigns count on a last-minute surge through some kind of story or advertising or revelation that could change the election in the last few days,” said Jack Pitney, a widely respected political scientist at Claremont-McKenna College near Los Angeles.

California: The Cost of Taking on California “Reformers” | NBC Bay Area

Prop 14, the initiative to put in place California’s new top-two primary system, was backed by business interests and rich folks, such as Charles Munger Jr. This year, as it is being used for the first time in a California election cycle, it has so far been a bust — except for adding considerably to the nastiness and expense of campaigns. A small group of less-than-wealthy citizens — many of them longtime supporters of minor political parties — has gone to the courts to challenge Prop 14, on multiple grounds. Among their objections are that the top-two primary limits the rights of people who would choose to vote for minor political parties (since they no longer appear on the general election ballot) and also excludes write-ins. … But the citizens lost their challenge in court, with judges finding that the top-two primary law was valid and constitutional. But unfortunately for these citizen-challengers, that’s not the end of the story.

California: Judge resets trial on San Mateo County’s besieged voting system until after fall election | San Jose Mercury News

A judge Wednesday granted San Mateo County’s request to postpone a trial on the legality of its at-large system for electing supervisors, which critics contend is discriminatory because it dilutes the votes of minority residents. But in agreeing to wait until after the Nov. 6 election, Superior Court Judge Beth Freeman said the trial wouldn’t be moot even if residents approve a ballot measure to replace countywide supervisor elections with district elections. As civil rights lawyers who sued the county argued in their legal papers, “it is highly unlikely that the entire case would be moot if the voters approve district elections,” Freeman said in her ruling. “It is, however, quite clear that voter action would significantly affect the scope of the legal challenge and inform the court of the remedies remaining.” The lawsuit, filed in April 2011, contends that selecting supervisors countywide instead of by the districts they represent violates the California Voting Rights Act because that action weakens the voting power of Latino and Asian-American residents. Although each minority group makes up about one-quarter of the county’s population, there’s been only one Latino supervisor and no Asian-Americans since 1995, according to the lawsuit.

California: In two Bay Area cities, critics tackle ranked-choice voting | California Watch

In the past 10 years, four California cities have embraced ranked-choice voting, the system of computerized runoff elections that boosters say streamlines and reforms local politics. Almost as soon as the new systems were in place, critics began trying to roll ranked-choice voting back. Opponents are ready to go back at it this week. Tomorrow officials in San Francisco are scheduled to consider measures that would modify the new high-tech voting system. The Oakland City Council was asked to consider a measure tomorrow that would have abolished rank-choice voting entirely in that city. But Mayor Jean Quan blocked it from coming before the council, said Terry Reilly, a former San Jose election official and a ranked-choice voting opponent.  In a ranked-choice election, voters get three weighted choices for each office on the ballot. If no candidate wins 50 percent of the first-choice votes, a computerized “instant runoff” is held to select the winner.

California: Two-thirds of California voters cast ballots by mail | Fresno Bee

Nearly two-thirds of California voters cast their vote by mail in the June election, a record for the state, but fewer than a third of registered voters turned out, Secretary of State Debra Bowen reported Friday. Bowen’s office officially certified the results of the primary election, which was the first time Californians tested two new voter-approved changes: a top-two primary system and new congressional and legislative boundaries drawn for the first time by an independent commission. The new primary system led to a crowded ballot in many races; U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein faced 24 challengers. She faces Republican Elizabeth Emken in November.

California: Cudahy officials threw away ballots, manipulated two elections | latimes.com

Cudahy officials at the city’s highest levels tampered with and manipulated the results of at least two city elections, according to federal documents released Thursday. The documents were part of the plea agreements of two Cudahy city officials who agreed to plead guilty Thursday to bribery and extortion. But the documents also shed light on a culture of corruption within City Hall, with examples of widespread bribery and developer payoffs to voter fraud. “The very definition of democracy is that all those qualified as voters have the opportunity to cast their votes and to have those votes counted,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Joseph Akrotirianakis said.

California: De La Fuente pushes for vote on Oakland’s election system | Inside Bay Area

This November will be Oakland’s second election using ranked-choice voting, but if Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente gets his way, it could be the last. De La Fuente wants council members next week to place an initiative on the November ballot asking voters to rescind the voting system and return to holding runoff elections when no candidate wins an absolute majority. But De La Fuente doesn’t appear to have the votes to get the measure on the ballot, and he likely won’t even be able to keep the proposal on the council’s agenda. Ranked-choice elections ask voters to rank their top three candidates. When no candidate wins more than half of the first-place votes, the second- and third-place votes are tabulated, avoiding the need for runoff elections.

California: Appeals court to examine ballot numbering | San Jose Mercury News

An appeals court on Tuesday asked the California secretary of state to explain why Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax initiative should be first on the November ballot. The Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento agreed to examine a challenge to the decision, one day after the state’s chief elections officer assigned numbers to 11 measures on the November ballot. Although no hearing was set, the secretary of state has until July 30 to respond. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is challenging a new law that placed the Democratic governor’s tax initiative at the top of a crowded ballot as Proposition 30. The bill, AB1499, moved the governor’s measure ahead of others because it involves a constitutional amendment.

California: San Francisco ranked choice voting repeal effort gets tricky with three alternatives | San Francisco Bay Guardian

The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on July 10 whether to place a controversial charter amendment on November’s ballot that would largely repeal San Francisco’s ranked-choice voting (RCV) system, but the outcome of that effort has become murky with the introduction of two competing alternatives. The original charter amendment, sponsored by Sup. Mark Farrell, would eliminate RCV for all citywide elected officials, instead holding a primary in September and runoff in November. The board rejected an earlier effort by Farrell to repeal RCV, but Farrell came back with a modified measure that was co-sponsored by Sup. Christina Olague, much to the dismay of her progressive supporters, particularly Steven Hill, the father of RCV in San Francisco. Hill said runoff elections in September, a month notorious for having low-voter turnout, will invariably favor the conservatives who always vote in high numbers. He said that RCV is a fairer representation of what voters want and a November election allows for more voters to be heard.

California: California Becomes Sixth State To Call For Amendment Against Citizens United Ruling | Huffington Post

One of the largest states in the nation took an official stand Thursday against the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, which ruled that government restriction of corporation or union spending on political campaigns violated the First Amendment right to free speech. California joins Hawaii, Vermont, Rhode Island, Maryland and New Mexico in calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court ruling. State assembly members Bob Wieckowski (D-Calif.) and Michael Allen (D-Calif.) introduced the campaign finance reform bill in January, calling for the federal government to send a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United to all the states for ratification. The measure also would serve as an official symbol of California’s disagreement with the ruling.

California: Same-day voter registration bill moves forward in California Legislature | Ventura County Star

Election seasons come and go, and with them public attention to the political process waxes and wanes. “The really heartbreaking fact of the matter is that a lot of the excitement kicks in about two weeks before Election Day. But by then it’s too late, and a lot of people are left sitting on the sidelines,” said Kim Alexander, president and founder of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation. “If we can engage people when they’re excited, we have an opportunity to create a lifelong voter.” The Legislature on Tuesday moved closer toward embracing one way to help Californians seize that moment by allowing voter registration to take place through Election Day — an approach that has sparked sharp partisan divisions in the past. On a party-line vote, with majority Democrats in support, the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee approved a bill to allow same-day voter registration as soon as a new statewide computerized database is operational. The system will let elections officials check the status of all voters statewide.

California: Uncounted ballots will settle Shasta County elections | Redding Record Searchlight

An estimated 13,075 ballots, the vast majority vote-by-mail, have yet to be counted in Shasta County, putting the results of some supervisor races in question. “We are all on pins and needles,” said Cathy Darling-Allen, the county clerk and registrar of voters. The vote-by-mail ballots were dropped off last week at polling stations around the county and the clerk’s office, she said. Poll workers reported around 5,478 absentee ballots turned in at polling places around the county. Others were dropped off at the clerk’s office on election day or were older and had yet to be counted. Shasta County also has 575 uncounted provisional ballots, according to the California Secretary of State’s count of unprocessed ballots Monday afternoon. Darling-Allen said her office had counted around 5,200 mail-in ballots turned in to poll workers so far.

California: 15 races are still unresolved after Tuesday’s primary | latimes.com

Days after Tuesday’s primary election, four congressional and 11 Assembly races — as well as Proposition 29, a proposed cigarette tax — still are undecided. In most of the candidate contests, it’s not yet clear who finished second — a crucial position in the state’s new “top-two” elections system. The 15 unsettled races, one of which hung by two votes Friday, represent a significant jump from the typical three or four in past elections, according to Allan Hoffenblum, who publishes the nonpartisan California Target Book of state contests. They’re a product of the new primary system and freshly drawn voting districts. “Now we’ve got a whole smorgasbord of interesting contests,” Hoffenblum said.

California: Uncounted ballots keep California in limbo | Mohave Daily News

The waiting is the hardest part. With more than 830,000 primary ballots still uncounted, many candidates and campaigns in California remained on pins and needles Thursday awaiting the results of undecided races. Proposition 29, the proposal to increase taxes on tobacco products to pay for cancer research, was among the contests that remained too close to call. Election officials warned that more of the same could occur after November’s general election, when the stakes are even higher, due to California’s all-paper voting system and meticulous legal requirements for counties that tabulate results. More than half of California voters now cast ballots by mail, requiring elections officials to verify signatures and voting status. Ballots delivered to polling places on Election Day cannot be verified and counted until after polls close at 8 p.m. In addition, thousands more voters cast provisional ballots when their eligibility is in question, they move, or lose their vote-by-mail ballot.

California: Firewall to Blame for San Diego County Registrar of Voters’ Website Outage on Election Night | San Diego 6

The San Diego County Registrar of Voters’ website went out of service on election night because a firewall detected an attempt to overload the site, officials said Thursday, adding that an investigation was being conducted. Sdvote.com went down soon after initial results were posted after 8 p.m. Tuesday, and the site remained inoperative for about two hours. Access to the site was also spotty after midnight. Residents and local politicos use the site to track results. The county also uses its information technology to send a direct feed of results to news media, but that feed was not interrupted. According to a county statement, sdvote.com began receiving well over 1 million hits per minute from a single Internet protocol address around 8:15 p.m., so a firewall that recognized suspicious activity shut down outside access to county websites. Investigators said they believe the “denial of service” attack was launched against the site to prevent legitimate users from obtaining information. It was unknown if the attack was meant to disrupt the election itself, according to the county.

California: As Californians embrace vote-by-mail, number of unprocessed ballots swamp election offices | The Republic

The votes are all in for the California primary, but many remained uncounted Wednesday, leaving some contests still up in the air, notably the statewide question on whether to increase the tax on tobacco to fund cancer research. With more voters casting their ballots by mail, local election officials can’t process them all on Election Day, even one such as Tuesday that produced one of the lowest turnouts ever for a statewide primary. While tabulations show votes from all precincts across the state, many votes will remain uncounted for days or weeks afterward. No one had a precise estimate of the uncounted votes statewide, but it was at least 800,000 and perhaps a million or more as of Wednesday.

California: Shift in voting rules shakes up primary elections | San Francisco Chronicle

The potentially dramatic effects of two landmark ballot measures approved by California voters in recent years began to emerge Tuesday with a primary election that could lead to shifts in the state’s legislative profile in Sacramento and Washington. In the Bay Area, the new order was most apparent in southern Alameda County, where 19-term Democratic Rep. Fortney “Pete” Stark of Fremont was leading county prosecutor Eric Swalwell in the redrawn 15th Congressional District – but by far less than typical for an incumbent. Come the November election, Stark will be facing not a Republican, but fellow Democrat Swalwell – the result of the inaugural run of the state’s “top two” primary system, in which the two leading vote-getters in the primary advance to the fall ballot regardless of party affiliation. The idea was approved by voters as Proposition 14 in 2010.

California: Democrats are Largest Party in California’s 31st U.S. House District, But Top-Two Open Primary Leaves Party with No Candidate in November | Ballot Access News

California’s 31st U.S. House district ballot in November 2012 will list two Republicans, Gary G. Miller and Bob Dutton. At the June 5, 2012 primary, Miller placed first with 26.9% of the vote, and Dutton placed second, with 25.1% of the vote. However, the district has more registered Democrats than registered Republicans. The registration in the district is: Democratic 40.8%, Republican 35.3%, independent 19.3%, other parties 3.6%. The district is centered on San Bernardino County and had no incumbent running this year. Four Democrats, but only two Republicans, ran in the June 5 primary. It is virtually certain that if fewer Democrats had run, Pete Aguilar, a Democratic candidate and Mayor of Redlands, would have placed among the top two. Aguilar placed third, with 22.5% of the vote. Democrats had been expecting to win this seat in November, but now it is impossible, because no Democrat is on the November ballot.

California: Nonpartisan Primary Shows Independents to Be in Short Supply | NYTimes.com

For those who hoped that an open, nonpartisan primary in California would bring in a new wave of independent candidates and voters, Tuesday’s primary might have felt like a splash of cold water. Turnout remained stubbornly low, and the vast majority of candidates who advanced to the fall election were registered Republicans and Democrats. But the election did provide a few surprises that would not have been possible with a traditional primary. For one thing, there could be as many as eight Congressional races in which two candidates from the same party run against each other in November’s general election. In 2010, voters approved plans to create an open primary, in which voters choose candidates regardless of their political affiliation and the top two vote getters move to the general election. For those who pushed for the change, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, then the governor, the changes were meant to break partisan gridlock and encourage candidates to cater to the middle. There was certainly no revolution this year. Still, there are some signs that the changes will affect the way Congressional and legislative races are run this year.

California: Super PACs play major role in California House contests | iWatch News

Usually, if you make a political run against someone in your own party, you have just one chance any given year: the primary election. But under new rules passed by California voters in 2010, several intra-party feuds are continuing until November in the Golden State. Tuesday was the first state-wide test of the new “jungle primary” or “top-two primary,” in which all candidates compete against each other regardless of party affiliation. Only the top two vote getters will be on the November general election ballot. In a handful of races, this means voters will see two Democrats — or two Republicans — pitted against one another. Political scientist Bruce Cain, the executive director of the University of California Washington Center, says these intra-party fights will be “spots of white-hot intensity.”

California: GOP catches a ‘top-two’ break | The Washington Post

House Republicans got a big break under California’s new primary system Tuesday, after Democrats failed to get a candidate into the general election for Rep. Gary Miller’s (R-Calif.) swing district. Under the new system, the top two candidates in an open field make the general election, regardless of party. So while Miller (27 percent) and Dutton (25 percent) split up about half the vote, four Democrats on the ballot split up the other half into smaller pieces. The result: The seat will stay Republican this fall.

California: Low turnout despite sweeping California proposals | RealClearPolitics

California’s statewide primary election was marked Tuesday by light turnout at polling sites and few problems flagged by election officials even as the state tested out some sweeping changes. The primary was providing the first statewide run on a top-two voting system and newly redrawn legislative and congressional districts. Voters also were weighing in on a cigarette tax and changes to term limits. San Diego and San Jose  – the nation’s eighth- and 10th-largest cities – are being closely watched as voters decide on heated measures to curb retirement benefits for current government workers. San Diego also has a fierce mayoral fight.

California: House races present dilemma for Democrats | San Francisco Chronicle

Some of the most competitive House races in California in November could pit Democrats against Democrats, analysts said. But while state Democrats are likely to pick up a couple of seats in Congress in November, Tuesday’s results will also force left-leaning organizations to think hard about where – and where not – to focus their resources this fall. The top-two primary created several Democrat-versus-Democrat races in November that would have been impossible under the previous system. Tuesday’s primary created fewer Republican-on-Republican matchups in the fall. While the number of California Democrats in Congress probably will grow, there will be a near-term cost to the party.

California: San Diego Registrar of Voters Says Glitch Brought Down Results Website | San Diego 6

The San Diego County Registrar of Voters office website crashed Tuesday night soon after posting its initial results from mail-in ballots and other early voting. Registrar Deborah Seiler told a local media outlet that some kind of glitch prevented results from being posting to the website, but there was no problem counting votes. The entire website was down for about two hours, until it returned around 10:20 p.m.

California: Voters see election reforms firsthand as they prepare to cast primary ballots | The Republic

California voters will confront a longer ballot with more choices as they head to the polls Tuesday for the first statewide primary featuring sweeping voter-approved election reforms.  A new top-two primary system and redrawn legislative and congressional districts are intended to blunt the influence of the two main political parties and lead to more competitive races involving more moderate candidates. Tuesday’s voting will test those assumptions. For the first time, an independent panel of citizens drew the boundaries for revamped legislative and congressional districts, and only the top two vote-getters in each race will advance to the November ballot, regardless of their political party. That’s likely to create several hard-fought and expensive contests in the fall, including some that feature members of the same party and independents.