California: California allows online voter registration | San Jose Mercury News

Californians will be able to register to vote online for the 2012 elections.
Gov. Jerry Brown announced Friday that he signed legislation that supporters say will modernize California's election system.

The bill, SB 397, allows the state to begin registering voters online ahead of a new statewide voter database. It directs state election officials and the Department of Motor Vehicles to match registration information submitted online with DMV records containing an electronic copy of a voter's signature.

California: Los Angeles County Voting System Overhaul To Include Options | AM 1220

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk (RR/CC) has embarked on the most significant overhaul of the voting system since 1968. Although the system has been upgraded and adapted to keep up with changes in technology and in the regulatory environment, this project has a much larger scope.

“What we’re embarked on now through the Voting Systems Assessment Project (VSAP) is a full scale effort to actually completely replace our voting system,” said Efrain Escobedo, Executive Liaison for the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.

In September of 2009 the RR/CC through VSAP began to engage a number of community organizations, and election and civil rights advocates to find out what they thought about the current voting system, and what a future voting system should be able to do and to provide to voters.

California: California State budget risks voters’ access to ballot of choice | Ventura County Star

How do you vote when casting your ballot in a local, primary or general election in Ventura County? If you're like almost half of all Ventura County voters, you choose what is popularly known as an absentee ballot, or what we now mostly call VBM — Vote By Mail.

Here's another question: Would it surprise you to know that the recent state budget deal enacted in Sacramento may kill your opportunity to vote by mail in the next county election? This is the shocking result of a sly move buried on page 620 of the $85.9 billion state budget. It was little noted at the time, but I believe it could be long remembered, and for very unfortunate reasons.

Here's the situation: As our state officials searched for ways to deal with our protracted budget deficit, they slashed one area of funding that's been in place for decades: Reimbursement to all 58 California counties for the costs incurred in conducting regular elections and making specific arrangements for voters requiring special assistance when exercising their right to participate in our democracy.

California: Zany instant runoff race in San Francisco gives voters thousands of choices | Ventura County Star

The city that is home to the crookedest street in the world is this fall witnessing what surely could be the zaniest election in America. There are 16 people running for mayor and hardly a gadfly in the bunch. The field includes the current appointed mayor, two county supervisors, a state senator, the public defender, the city attorney, the assessor-recorder and three former supervisors.

Each is eligible for up to $900,000 in public financing, so none will be starved for campaign funds. Even those who find themselves dropping in the polls will be able to keep battling through Election Day.

When voters receive their ballots, they will have not one, not two, not even just 16 choices to make. Rather, under the instant-runoff voting system that is being used for the first time in a San Francisco mayoral election, they will have 3,360 distinct ways they could fill out their ballot.

California: Web registering may shake up voter rolls in California | San Francisco Examiner

Registering to vote might soon be as easy as placing an online order for a pizza with all the fixings. A bill by state Sen. Leland Yee could push millions more Californians to vote, and save the state millions of dollars by moving voter registration to the Web.

The measure was approved by the state Legislature in September and is awaiting a signature or veto by Gov. Jerry Brown, who has not indicated how he views the legislation.

About 6.5 million eligible California residents are not registered to vote and could benefit from the program. But online registration could be a major draw for one notably left-leaning and underregistered demographic — young adults.

California: Before Bush v Gore there was the Diamond Bar Recount | Diamond Bar, CA Patch

The early years of Diamond Bar cityhood were contentious as those favoring strict limitation of development clashed with those favoring granting city council with more flexibility in planning land use. In 1992 and again in 1993, the City Council revised and adopted two General Plans presented by citizen advisory committees. Both rescinded by referendum, Diamond Bar’s early distinction included holding the state record for being incorporated without an accepted General Plan.

“The City of Diamond Bar is almost 6 years old now…That doesn’t mean the City Council has to Act that way” was the headline on a Diamond Bar Caucus 1995 campaign flyer endorsing Bob Huff and Carol Herrera. With conflicting visions of how the city should mature, the 1995 election cycle brought out 11 candidates vying for two city council seats, including one held by Phyllis Papen, who would not be re-elected.

Planning Commissioner Bob Huff surpassed the other candidates at the polls. The vote spread for the second seat between Carol Herrera and Don Schad was close, fluctuated, and involved litigation that did not end until May of the following year. Herrera remembers on election night, she was down by six votes. The absentee ballots added in, she was ahead by 12.  Schad requested a recount.  Herrera could have chosen a hand recount, but she was concerned with the additional cost and believed the recount by machine would provide equitable results.

California: Bill to Protect Senior’s Voting Rights Signed into Law | senior-spectrum.com

Assemblyman Mike Gatto’s (D- Los Angeles) AB 547, a measure to protect senior citizens from voter fraud and abuse, has been signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown and will thus take effect before the 2012 elections.

The new law makes it a misdemeanor, with stiff fines, for anyone providing care or direct supervision to a person who is at least 65 years old to coerce or deceive that senior into voting for or against a candidate or measure contrary to the senior’s intent.

California: Legislative Analysis Shows Election Administration-Related Problems Caused by Prop. 14 | Ballot Access News

As reported previously, AB 1413 had been set for a hearing in the California Senate Elections Committee on September 7. That hearing was never held, but in preparation for the hearing, legislative employees had prepared an analysis of the bill, which was introduced to make alterations in the “top-two” Proposition 14 procedure. Proposition 14 passed in June 2010 and says all candidates for Congress and partisan state office run on a single primary ballot in June. Then, only the two top vote-getters may run in November.

The analysis says, “In 2009, as part of a state budget agreement, a measure was placed on the ballot for the voters to consider authorizing a ‘top-two’ primary election system. At the same time that measure was approved, the Legislature also approved a series of changes to the Election Code to implement a top two primary election system. Unfortunately, due to the nature in which those statutory changes were adopted, they created a number of problems for the effective and efficient operation of elections. Last year, the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee held an oversight hearing to hear from elections officials about some of the problems with those statutory changes. Among other problems, county elections officials testified that certain ballot printing requirements created an unnecessary burden, and could significantly increase election costs.

California: Online Registration Bill Hits Governor’s Desk | NBC Bay Area

Registering to vote online in California would've happened eventually. State officials had been expecting to go that route after 2015, when a new statewide voter database is due to be finished.

But Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) calls the change "long overdue." His measure, SB397, which landed on the governor's desk Friday, requires California to join states like Arizona and Oregon in moving toward an on-line registration system by next year's elections.

Right now, county election officials compare a voter's signature to their signature on a paper registration form. The new law, if signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, tells the DMV to develop a system of digitized signatures that could be used by election officials for voter verification.

California: Top Two Primary Fight Heads to Federal Appeals Court | Business & Election Law

The legal battle surrounding California’s controversial Top Two Primary has reached an influential federal appeals court.

This afternoon, a federal trial court refused to put California’s controversial new election regime on hold.  In response, Plaintiffs Michael Chamness, Daniel Frederick, and Rich Wilson immediately asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the lower court’s decision.

Earlier, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals made a key ruling:  it allowed in critical evidence that directly challenges the legality of the Top Two Primary.

California: Tight-lipped ballot thief to be set free, 50 days later than expected | San Francisco Examiner

A man accused of stealing ballots from a San Francisco polling station last November will be set free Wednesday after staying in jail for 50 days longer than necessary because of his conduct during a series of bizarre court appearances.

Karl Bradfield Nicholas, 51, was accused of taking about 75 ballots, a voter roster, a cellphone, and a memory box and access key to a voting machine on Knott Court in the city's Crocker Amazon neighborhood where he was working as a voting station inspector on Nov. 2, 2010. Nicholas was arrested the next day, and the ballots were later found in the lagoon at the Palace of Fine Arts. He has been in custody ever since. The memory box, access key and cellphone have yet to be found.

Nicholas was set to be freed last month after pleading guilty in December to a felony count of tampering with voting machines and ballots in exchange for a year in county jail and other penalties, although he later tried to withdraw the plea.

California: New primary system could shake up California politics | SignOnSanDiego.com

California voters will engage in a new election process next year that does away with traditional political party nominations and replaces them with primaries that could result in two candidates from the same party squaring off in the general election. In the so-called top-two primary election in June, state and congressional candidates of all parties will appear on the same ballot, allowing all voters to choose nominees without partisan constraints.

The new election system, approved by voters last November, will go into effect after the once-a-decade redrawing of political districts was done for the first time by an independent citizens commission, rather than the politicians themselves.

Proponents say the top-two primary, along with the new districts, will spur competition, help guard against spoiler candidates and potentially lead to more moderate lawmakers being elected. They further hope a new dynamic will emerge to lessen partisan rancor. But critics contend the new primary will limit choice, drive up the cost of campaigning and spell the end of third-party candidates.

California: Will mail ballots be a victim of budget? | PressDemocrat.com

In 1979, a year after voters adopted Proposition 13 and tightly limited property taxes, they decreed in another ballot measure that the state should reimburse schools and local governments for state-mandated costs they incur.

That seemingly straightforward decree, however, has evolved into a chronically convoluted wrangle over what is, and what is not, a reimbursable cost and how much money should flow from Sacramento into local coffers.

Thousands of school districts, cities, counties and special districts, the governor's Department of Finance, legislative committees, lawyers, a special state bureaucracy called the Commission on State Mandates — and sometimes the courts — are enmeshed in a process that can be likened to a laboratory rat on a treadmill, running ever-faster but going nowhere.

California: Suspected Ballot Thief Refuses To Take Mental Competency Test | KTVU

A man accused of stealing ballots from a San Francisco polling station will remain in jail indefinitely after refusing to talk to doctors who were appointed to determine his mental competency, a judge ruled Monday. Karl Bradfield Nicholas, 51, could likely have been out of jail more than a month ago, but a series of bizarre court appearances have kept him in custody beyond the sentence he had agreed to as part of a plea deal.

Nicholas is accused of taking about 75 ballots, a voter roster, and a memory box and access key to a ballot-counting machine on Knott Court in the city's Crocker Amazon neighborhood where he was working as a voting station inspector on Nov. 2, 2010. Nicholas was arrested the next day, and the ballots were later found in the lagoon at the Palace of Fine Arts. He has been in custody ever since. The memory box and access key have yet to be found.

California: Mental status of San Francisco’s ballot thief to be determined | San Francisco Examiner

Doctors are set to cast their votes today on whether a former San Francisco poll worker who stole dozens of ballots on Election Day is crazy. On the eve of his possible release from jail last month, 51-year-old Karl Bradfield Nicholas was thrown back into a cell after giving the judge the silent treatment.

The Gandhi-esque snub was the latest in a string of bizarre behavior that caused Superior Court Judge Anne Bouliane to order a psychiatric evaluation.

California: State vote-by-mail action taken in stride locally | Ukiah Daily Journal

The state's plan to cut out reimbursement to counties for vote-by-mail ballots won't affect Mendocino County much, according to Registrar of Voters Sue Ranochak. The state Legislature passed a bill in its 2011-12 budget that aims to save $33 million by suspending state mandates that require counties to process voter registration applications received by mail and to send vote-by-mail ballots to voters who apply for them, among other mandates suspended.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen opposes the suspensions, saying they could cause confusion and disenfranchise voters, and Ranochak concurs, along with about 45 other counties represented at a recent meeting. "I'm going to follow what the secretary of state recommends," Ranochak said. "It's important that people vote."

Not that the suspensions change much for Mendocino County, according to Ranochak. She explained that the county pays all costs up front for each election, then waits for reimbursement from the state, which can take anywhere from six months to two years.

California: Vote-by-mail service under threat in California budget cuts | San Jose Mercury News

California's beloved vote-by-mail system will remain largely intact, despite state legislators' raid on its relatively small pot of dollars. County election clerks say they likely will scrape up the $33 million the state sliced from the budget for elections. Permanent vote-by-mail allows voters to sign up once and automatically receive ballots. Under the old system, voters who wished to vote by mail requested a ballot each election.

Nearly half of the 10.3 million residents who cast ballots in November did so through the mail. The percentage topped the halfway mark in most counties, offering further evidence that voting by mail has become an indispensable feature for many.

However, the fact that the fate of permanent vote-by-mail service rests with each of California's 58 counties now that the state suspended reimbursement is prompting voting rights advocates to rekindle their calls for a stronger state role in elections. California's decentralized election system means counties could "decide to eliminate the permanent vote-by-mail option," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. "Voter access is already uneven from county to county, and the suspension of the mandates is only going to make it worse.

"What do we tell voters when they want to know if they can vote by mail?"

California: State says it won’t pay, and counties don’t have to distribute mail-in ballots | Contra Costa Times

The state will not reimburse Butte County and other county election offices to send out vote-by-mail ballots for the next year, a service half the county's registered voters use rather than lining up at the polls.

Butte County Registrar of Voters Candace Grubbs plans to report the issue to the Board of Supervisors and its effects at their Tuesday meeting. Of 116,493 registered voters in Butte County as of Friday, 58,048 checked the box to receive ballots in the mail, according to the Butte County Registrar of Voters Office.

"County elections officials have the option of providing vote-by-mail ballots to any voter who requests one for any reason, but if they do, they will not be reimbursed for the cost of doing so in the 2011-12 fiscal year," wrote Lowell Finley, deputy secretary of state, in a memo to all county registrar of voters.

California: Budget cuts may end mail-in ballots, registration | San Francisco Chronicle

Buried on page 620 of the state budget are a few small cuts that could change the way Californians vote.

To save $33 million, the bill suspended several state mandates requiring counties to provide voting services that many Californians take for granted. The state no longer requires counties to process all voter registration applications they receive by mail or to send out vote-by-mail ballots to anyone who wants one. Counties still could provide these services, and many probably will, but they won't be reimbursed by the state.

California: Internet Voting In California? | California Progress Report

Election integrity advocates recently launched a campaign to block a bill, SB908, that would have introduced email voting for Californians living overseas. We fought it for several reasons.

First, paperless voting itself is dangerous because there is no independent way to check the results claimed by the machines, and no way to recover when something goes wrong, and it will. Voting across the Internet is worse, because it opens up the voting system to several more types of attack, from anywhere in the world, all of them dangerous. Voting by email attachment is even worse, because no attempt is made to encrypt the ballot as it travels from computer to computer across the globe on the way to its destination.

Any of these computers is quite capable of "photoshopping" or simply blocking any ballot that passes through. A ballot sent from Afghanistan could pass through computers in China, Iran, Russia, or any other country interested in "fixing" ballots headed for California. This is only one of several severe vulnerabilities in Internet voting.

California: Yamada bill for all-mail ballot voting goes to governor | Daily Democrat

A bill that would bring an all-mail voting pilot project to Yolo County has gone to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature. The bill overcame its last legislative hurdle Thursday, passing the Assembly Floor on a 50-19 vote.

"An important feature of this bill is the data that will be collected about the effects of all-mail ballot voting. The study element featured in this bill could help guide the future of elections in California," said the bill's sponsor Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada, D-Davis.

"I am proud to have received support on both sides of the aisle this year. This practical bill will give local governments an opportunity to save thousands of dollars per election."

California: Ballot Thief To Be Held Indefinitely After String Of Bizarre Court Hearings | KTVU

A man accused of stealing ballots from a San Francisco polling station last November is being held indefinitely after criminal proceedings against him were suspended today because of a judge's doubts about his mental competency.

Karl Bradfield Nicholas, 51, is accused of taking about 75 ballots, a voter roster, and a memory box and access key to a ballot-counting machine on Knott Court in the city's Crocker Amazon neighborhood where he was working as a voting station inspector on Nov. 2, 2010.

Nicholas was arrested the next day, and the ballots were later found in the lagoon at the Palace of Fine Arts. The memory box and access key have yet to be found, and Nicholas has been in custody ever since.

California: Vote-suppression complaints filed in testy congressional election | latimes.com

As voters headed to the polls Tuesday to decide a hard-fought special congressional election in the South Bay area, attorneys for Democrat Janice Hahn filed complaints alleging that supporters of her opponent, Republican Craig Huey, were trying to suppress turnout of her voters.

In a letter sent Tuesday to the Los Angeles County district attorney, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles and the California attorney general, Hahn lawyers Stephen J. Kaufman and Steven J. Reyes asked for immediate investigations into "voter suppression actitivies" in the 36th Congressional District race.

The attorneys said several voters reported receiving telephone calls Monday night telling them the election had been postponed to Wednesday at Hahn's request ,and others were given wrong polling place addresses.

California: CA-36: Robocalls telling voters the election is moved to Wednesday? | Politico.com

This was inevitable: An early complaint of voter suppression in California's special House election. Janice Hahn's campaign has filed a complaint with the state Attorney General to investigate "several reports" of calls to voters that Tuesday's election had been moved to Wednesday.

According to Hahn's attorney, other voters received calls including "incorrect polling information."

One voter received a call Monday morning saying, "Called to let you know that the election has been moved to Wednesday, per Janice Hahn's request.  Thanks, bye."

California: San Francisco Ballot Thief Gives Judge Silent Treatment | KTVU

A man accused of stealing ballots from a San Francisco polling station last November seems determined not to get out of jail after giving the silent treatment to the judge at his sentencing hearing Monday.

Karl Bradfield Nicholas, 51, was set to receive a one-year sentence but would likely have been set free today because of credit for time already served. Instead, he was to be held for at least two additional days for a mental health examination.

The silent treatment was the latest in a series of bizarre hearings involving the case, in which Nicholas was accused of taking ballots, a voter roster, and a memory box and access key to a voting machine on Knott Court in the city's Crocker Amazon neighborhood where he was working as a voting station inspector on Nov. 2, 2010.

California: San Francisco mayoral election to change shape as ranked-choice voting debuts | San Francisco Examiner

Gone are the days when voting was as simple as voting for the best person you most want to see serve. When voters head to the polls on Nov. 8, they will be asked to vote for not only who they want to win the most to serve as San Francisco’s mayor, but also their second and third choices.

For a chart detailing how ranked-choice voting played a role in Jean Quan's surprise Oakland mayoral election victory, click on the photo to the right.

This way of voting for San Francisco’s mayor has yet to be tested in a citywide race — this is the first time what is known as ranked-choice voting will come into play in the race for The City’s top post.

California: Online voter registration moves closer in California | Central Valley Business Times

Legislation that would allow Californians to register to vote via their county’s election office website has been approved by the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee.

If the measure makes it into law, California would joins several other states that already offer online registration. California has lagged behind awaiting implementation of the statewide online database system known as VoteCal, which has been delayed until at least 2015.

SB 397, authored by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, also puts into place greater safeguards to fraud than the current paper registration process.

California: Sentencing Delayed For San Francisco Ballot Thief | KTVU

A man who pleaded guilty to stealing ballots from a polling station he was working at in San Francisco's Crocker Amazon neighborhood last November was set to be released next week but will stay in jail a little while longer after a bizarre sentencing hearing Thursday.

Karl Bradfield Nicholas, 51, had pleaded guilty to stealing the ballots, a voter roster, and a memory box and access key to a voting machine from the station on Knott Court where he was working as a poll worker supervisor on Election Day, Nov. 2, 2010. Nicholas was arrested early the next day and the ballots were later found in the lagoon at the Palace of Fine Arts, prosecutors said.

California: Dean Logan and Michael Alvarez: Needed – a 21st century voter registration system for California | San Francisco Chronicle

The world looks to California for 21st century innovation, especially for the application of technology that makes life less costly and more efficient.

Californians are well into the 21st century, working in the cloud, using smart phones and tablet computers, and getting their entertainment on-demand by satellite. But when it comes to voter registration, California seems to be stuck in the 18th century. State law won't allow eligible citizens in our state to register online until at least 2015 -- and maybe much later.

California: Report finds Santa Clara County California mail-in ballot hiccup may have impacted local races | Inside Bay Area

Santa Clara County election officials sent more than 7,500 mail ballots to the wrong addresses during last June's election, unwittingly canceling votes cast by some South Bay residents even as those living out of state received ballots.

A report released Friday from the county's civil grand jury concludes the Registrar of Voters does not follow the proper procedures to avoid errors when mailing out ballots to people who have recently moved.