Posted on 08/11/2003 3:00:43 PM PDT by heleny
Drawing determines alphabetical order for Oct. 7 ballot
By Jim Wasserman
ASSOCIATED PRESS
1:59 p.m., August 11, 2003
The first letter chosen was R, followed by W, Q and O.
The six-minute grab bag of letters seemed more like a lottery drawing than a routine process, which is done every election to help erase the estimated 5 percent advantage a candidate gets from being at the top of the ballot, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley said.
The letters H, B and S, were drawn as eighth, ninth and tenth, [my correction: 9th, 10th, 11th] meaning that some high-profile candidates, commentator Arianna Huffington, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be relatively near each other on most ballots.
But as the Shelley's office continues to certify finalists for the ballot, the precise order won't be known until late Wednesday when Shelley certifies how many of the 195 candidates who submitted papers will make the official ballot.
Shelley said Monday the office has qualified 96 candidates and is reviewing the paperwork submitted by 99 more.
The lottery-style alphabetical system will rotate names on 80 different ballots in each of the state's Assembly districts. Under the system, candidates who start near the top in ballots used in northern California will shift to the bottom in southern California and work their way toward the middle, possibly for ballots in the 24 voter-rich Assembly districts of Los Angeles.
The huge list of candidates includes a variety of prominent candidates and celebrities, as well as dozens of ordinary Californians from a school teacher to a bail bondsman who paid $3,500 and collected 65 signatures to get on the ballot.
County elections officials fear more difficulties processing such a large ballot, including doing more work by hand, but Shelley urged precision over speed when the polls close on Oct. 7.
"I urge them to do it accurately," he said.
A greatly expanded ballot also means higher costs for the special election, now estimated at up to $66 million. Contra Costa County elections officials said the long candidate list could raise ballot costs by $750,000 over the county's earlier estimate of $1.6 million.
Shelley promised Monday he will ask for help.
"To assist the counties, I intend to urge the Legislature to underwrite the added costs of this election," he said, adding that he would ask on the "high end for reimbursement." The California State Association of Counties, noting the state has typically paid for special elections, also intends to seek legislative relief.
Shelley said the state's costs ballooned from $7 million to $11 million because a short time frame will require first class stamps to mail 11 million sample ballots.
"We don't know what the final costs will be," he said.
No, that 55% initiative is still in the signature-collecting stage. It could not possibly appear on this ballot, though it could appear on the March primary if they get it certified at least 131 days before March 2, 2004. Connerly's Racial Privacy Initiative (RPI, aka CRENO) is #54.It's getting some coverage in the news and on FR, but the other proposition is not getting much coverage.
Propsition #53 is a legislative referendum to dedicate an increasing percentage of the budget to "infrastructure," which includes transportation, roads, water, parks, schools, etc., up to 3%, and allows the legislature to decide how to spend the money.
The idea is that we pass water bonds, school bonds, and transportation bonds almost ever election, so why not just dedicate a permanent budget for those projects instead of asking voters each time. Of course, the 3% doesn't preclude additional bonds.
195 x $3,500 fee = $682,500
The state deficit starts shrinking.
Now the commercials and other campaign-related spending can infuse more money to the local economy.
Maybe Californians are not as wacky as they look.
Don't get too comfortable.
Yes. So, reading the sample ballot this time will be more helpful than ever.
I still wonder how they're going to manage nearly 200 candidates. The Ventura County ballots only had about 50 holes per two-sided punch card.
If they had a page that assigned a number (000-999) for each candidate, and we simply voted for a number, we would only need 30 holes for question #2. If we limited the numbers to consecutive numbers 001-195, we would only need 23 holes. But, I'm sure there's a law against conducting elections that way.
Moving from recall to re-count.
Prairie
Maybe it would be helpful if polling places maintained a separate alphabetical list where voters could find their favorite candidate and a ranking, 1-195, that indicated about how far down the ballot the voter could find the candidate name.
Since this election is so short -- just 4 statewide questions -- the extra time people take to read through all 195 names (or, on average, only half of them to find their favorite candidate), shouldn't be as bad as deciding whom to choose for thirty offices and whether to retain twenty judges.
Also, if the polling places offer a separate card with the names in alphabetical order and their corresponding rankings, that could help people vote faster.
Your suggestion is less random than the current system, which is not completely random, either, but the time to change the process would have been long before the election.
The letters rotate through the 80 Assembly districts, so he'll have his chance near the top, too. But, any candidates named Ci*, Ce*, Cu*, Cy*, Cl*, Cr*, etc. will appear before Coleman when C is the first letter.
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_ra.htm
... the Secretary of State conducts a random drawing of letters of the alphabet. The resulting order of letters constitutes the alphabet to be used for determining the order of candidates' names on the upcoming statewide ballot; it applies throughout the name, not just for the first letter so that Adams could precede Aaron.
Names of candidates for offices voted on statewide rotate by Assembly district, starting with Assembly District 1 where the names appear as first determined by the random alphabet. In Assembly District 2, the candidate who appeared first in Assembly District 1 drops to the bottom and the other candidates move up one position and so on throughout the 80 districts. This gives each candidate more than one opportunity to appear at the "top of the ticket" in his/her race. [not in the Oct 7, 2003 special election]
Congressional candidates rotate within their districts with the lowest numbered Assembly district leading the rotation. State Senate and Assembly candidates follow the random alphabet but do not rotate; however, if a legislative district crosses county lines, the elections officials of each county shall conduct a random drawing to determine candidate order for these offices in their county.
This procedure was established by legislation passed in 1975 in response to court rulings declaring that standard alphabetical order or incumbent-first was unconstitutional since there is a 5% positional bias among undecided voters.
13112. The Secretary of State shall conduct a drawing of the letters of the alphabet, the result of which shall be known as a randomized alphabet. The procedure shall be as follows:
(a) Each letter of the alphabet shall be written on a separate slip of paper.... The resulting random order of letters constitutes the randomized alphabet, which is to be used in the same manner as the conventional alphabet in determining the order of all candidates in all elections. For example, if two candidates with the surnames Campbell and Carlson are running for the same office, their order on the ballot will depend on the order in which the letters M and R were drawn in the randomized alphabet drawing.
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