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.

California: State to Test Nonpartisan Primaries | NYTimes.com

When new redistricting maps changed the boundaries of this Congressional district to give Democrats a slight edge for the first time in decades, party loyalists were elated. But now it seems possible that come November there will not even be a Democrat on the ballot. On Tuesday, for the first time, California voters will participate in a nonpartisan primary. Instead of the top candidate from each party advancing to the general election, the two candidates with the most votes will be placed on the November ballot, regardless of party affiliation. This year will be the first test of a new kind of election aimed at breaking the partisan gridlock that has seized Congress and state legislatures all over the country. When the change was presented to California voters by a ballot initiative in 2010, advocates said it would usher in a new era that embraced politicians who would be more pragmatic than ideological. “The elected officials in Sacramento are often on the far left and far right and certainly not reflective of the majority of people in the state,” said Aaron McLear, who worked on the change as an aide to Arnold Schwarzenegger, then the governor, and is now a political consultant. “What we wanted is a lot more candidates coming in even if they are not anointed by the party. It may take a few cycles to manifest itself, but you will have wild cards who can make some real change in the Capitol.”

California: Proposition 28 Would Change Term Limit Law | NBC

Proposition 28 on the June ballot would fundamentally change California’s law mandating term limits for members of the state legislature. The measure would increase the length of time that any one elected official could serve in either house of the state legislature to 12 years, up from six in the Assembly and eight in the Senate. It would decrease the total number of years that an official could serve, however, from 14 years to that same 12. Opponents say the initiative would give elected officials – many of whom run from safe seats where they face little opposition - way too much time in a single job. But supporters say Prop 28 would address an unintended consequence of the state’s 22-year-old term limit law: politicians who have little knowledge or experience in their jobs and are continually seeking new elective offices for which to run.

California: Riverside County’s voting machines being used for spare parts | The Desert Sun

The roughly 3,700 electronic voting machines owned by Riverside County are locked in a warehouse, being scavenged for parts, with no plans to sell the multimillion-dollar equipment that was rendered idle by the stroke of a pen more than five years ago, a county official confirmed Wednesday. In August 2007, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified e-voting units in use in counties throughout the state following a series of security tests that revealed vulnerabilities in the machines that could leave them open to computer hack attacks. At the time, Riverside County's Sequoia AVC Edge voting machines had been used in elections going back to 2000. County supervisors universally lauded e-voting, calling the practice a great time-saver with less risk for the type of errors that came to light in Florida following the 2000 presidential election. Members of election integrity group Save-R-Vote of Temecula Valley, a staunch opponent of e-voting, forecasted Bowen's decision, with the head of the organization, Tom Courbat, recommending that the county sell its Sequoia units for pennies on the dollar to cut its losses. He was ignored.

California: Eleven California counties miss deadline to send ballots to overseas, military voters | North County Times

Elections officials throughout California missed a deadline to send 8,250 ballots to overseas and military voters for next week's presidential primary, prompting a lawsuit and swift settlement over the weekend between the state officials and the U.S. Department of Justice. Eleven of the state's 58 counties violated the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act by failing to send ballots to voters abroad on April 21 - 45 days before the primary. While about 5,450 of the late ballots were sent out within two days of missing the deadline, some were delayed as much as a week. On Saturday, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit [PDF] against California for missing the deadline, but Secretary of State Debra Bowen reached an agreement on the matter that same day, federal officials said. As part of the settlement, the secretary of state's office will hold training sessions with at least one election official in each county before the general election in November.

California: New format to shake up June 5 primary | The San Luis Obispo Tribune

The June 5 primary is like any other in one regard: Voters get to pick who will face off in the November election for state legislative and congressional races. But that is where the similarities end. This time around, voters can choose anyone from the field, regardless of party affiliation. And all candidates will appear on all ballots. Gone is the day of having a one-party-only ballot. So in races for state Assembly, Senate and Congress, Republicans can vote for Democrats, and vice versa. Green Party members can back their party’s nominees — or candidates from other parties.
In this open primary, the top-two finishers qualify for the November ballot, regardless of party. If a race has only two candidates, they automatically go forward to November in what amounts to a test run. As logical as it might be for a winner to be declared in a two-candidate primary, the law requires them to also be on the ballot in November, according to the California Secretary of State’s Office.

California: Minor parties facing extinction under new voting system | San Jose Mercury News

They've been a colorful part of California's political landscape for decades -- Greens, Libertarians, American Independents and members of the Peace and Freedom Party. But after Tuesday's election, most of them will be all but invisible -- and perhaps on their way to extinction. In past years, minor parties held their own primary elections to choose nominees who would go on to compete with Democratic and Republican nominees in general elections. But that's no longer the case under California's new "top two" primary system, in which all voters choose from among all candidates of all parties -- and only the two candidates who get the most votes advance to November, regardless of party. Because minor party candidates rarely finish in the top two, and it's now harder for their candidates to get on the primary ballot in the first place, the parties will have little or no presence on the general-election ballot. And in politics, invisibility means oblivion. "It could spell the end of the Peace and Freedom Party," said party chairman C.T. Weber, 71, of Sacramento. "It's a shame that democracy is being undermined by this, but that's the reality if we're not able to overturn the law."

California: New voting rules alter California primary campaigns | fresnobee.com

This year's California elections will test the theory that having independently drawn districts and a "top-two" primary ballot will result in a less polarized, more collegial and more relevant political structure. It's already evident that these changes are altering campaign dynamics. For one thing, they mean more heated intraparty contests because politicians were thrown together by an independent redistricting and, for the first time, declined-to-state voters have a role in choosing who goes on to November. Under "top-two" rules, it's possible that in several districts, where large fields of candidates fragment the voter pool, the November election could pit an independent against a Democrat or Republican, while the other party's candidate is frozen out.

California: Voter Fraud or Voter-Fraud Fantasy? | Santa Barbara Independent

Our elections are overwhelmed with voter fraud, or so say Steve Pappas and Nancy Crawford-Hall, the publisher of the Santa Ynez Valley Journal. In her columns over recent months, Crawford-Hall has laid out what she claims is the evidence of this massive fraud. Does voter fraud threaten our system of democracy? Should we be worried? No. Pappas and Crawford-Hall have confused registration fraud, which is a petty crime that threatens nothing of much importance, with voting fraud, which actually is a serious crime. Out of this confusion, they have spun a fantastic story about democracy under attack. It isn’t true. The only threat to democracy came from Steve Pappas, who sought to strip 18,000 American citizens of their voting rights, a threat which the courts dismissed for a complete lack of evidence. Let me explain. Voting fraud is casting ballots illegally. Registering under a thousand different names and voting on behalf of these thousand fictitious people in an attempt to change the outcome of an election is an attempt to subvert democracy. Even a single case of casting a fraudulent vote is a serious crime. In contrast, registration fraud is typically petty theft. Many campaigns pay people to register voters for their side. If a dishonest deputy registrar fills out a few fake registration forms and registers his dog Fido, he gets paid for it. He is stealing from the campaign. But if it is theft, it ends there. A few family pets may end up on the voter rolls, but if they don’t vote, democracy suffers no harm.

California: Voter registration deadline looms; official worries of confusion with new primary system | Times-Standard

With television advertisements and lawn signs around every turn, campaign season is in full gear, but time is running out to register to cast a vote in the June election. Prospective voters have until the close of business Monday to drop off their registration forms at the Humboldt County Elections Office or get them postmarked if they wish to participate in the June primary election. The June 5 ballot will feature a number of local races -- including those for 1st, 2nd and 3rd District supervisor -- and candidates vying to represent the area in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives and the California State Assembly. The election will also be a historic one. It's the first time the state will roll out its new “Top Two” primary system, which will see voters choose from a single list of candidates -- regardless of political affiliations -- for state and national offices other than that of president. The new system will then see the top two vote getters move on to a runoff in the general election in November. The new system does not apply to local races, in which candidates can still win outright and avoid a runoff election by winning 50 percent plus one vote in June.

California: Fraud accusations mount for voter registration company in Sacramento County | The Sacramento Bee

A woman suspected of voter registration fraud in Sacramento County has been the subject of complaints in other campaigns as well. The registrar of voters in El Dorado County sent a warning to Monica Harris last year after problems with registrations collected at Folsom Lake College. During a signature drive in Sacramento last year – which was ultimately thrown out because of an unusually high number of rejected signatures – members of the Sacramento Central Labor Council also lodged complaints against Harris. Sacramento County Registrar of Voters Jill LaVine recently announced that she had turned over thousands of suspect registration cards turned in by Harris' company to the California secretary of state's office. In some cases, LaVine has received complaints from people who unknowingly had their party registration switched to Republican.

California: Disabled Voters Asked to Assess Polling Place Accessibility | KCET

From now until June 29, disabled voters in California will have the opportunity, by filling out a first-of-its-kind online survey, to weigh in on whether and how well county elections officials are providing for them at the polls. Results from the survey, which was created by the Secretary of State's office, are supposed to help determine whether elections staff need more training and whether there is a need for modified services or enhanced outreach programs for voters with disabilities.