[Diddle E. Squat]

How incredibly stupid. What a great way to guarantee confusion, voter complaints, slowing the process, and long lines at closing time. The same randomization could have been accomplished while avoiding the downside by simply doing a random drawing to determine which letter would be at the top, do such random drawing for each district, and then alphabetize the list behind that chosen letter. Thus whatever letter is at the top is different for each district, and determined by random luck, yet voters can easily find their candidate by then tracing down through the alphabet on their ballot.

For example, if the district #15 drawing made 'L' the first letter, then the order would be L, M, N, O, P....K. If district #37's drawing had 'F' as the first letter, then the order would be F, G, H, I....E.

Anybody believe the Dems are going to take advantage of this by trotting out Florida-style 98 year old nitwits whining about how they collapsed before they found their candidate in a completely random order 195 list? The average time in the booth is probably going to triple, in a likely high turnout election. Watch for some of the Dem-staffed poll locations to have so many poll workers call in sick that they are unable to open, it will certainly take place in a minority neighborhood, and the lawsuits will commence. And with the huge lines at closing time, watch for certain Dem poll locations to somehow just coincidently be unable to prevent persons arriving long after the poll closing times from sneaking into line because "the lines are so long it was impossible". If anybody but Bustamante wins, they'll need to get at least 2% more votes than him.

But this overdone randomization nonsense can't be blamed as a current Dem trick.

[heleny]

How incredibly stupid. What a great way to guarantee confusion, voter complaints, slowing the process, and long lines at closing time. The same randomization could have been accomplished while avoiding the downside by simply doing a random drawing to determine which letter would be at the top, do such random drawing for each district, and then alphabetize the list behind that chosen letter.

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.