California Recall Live Thread

[Sabertooth]

Do it California. Post here.

[kkindt]

Any plan to have a recall vote when the person in office gets 49% and so is kicked out but then the winner of the election only needs 34% is unfair, unjust to the electorate. I hope Davis stays in office. He won't fix things. The Democrats will then face a real election in a couple of years and hopefully have messed up the state so bad a conservative republican will be possible for victory.

Arnold is just a trojan horse for the Kennedy clan and the democrats.

Looks like Davis will stay in power and we republicans should be rejoicing if he does.

[goldstategop]

If its "NO" NONE of the replacement candidates gets elected. Not even Chris Matthews' Bustamante.

[Cboldt]

A judge also ruled that abstentions on q1 count towards the 50% +1 requirement.

How do they count toward the 50% + 1 requirement? I'm not disagreeing with you -- but others here have offered the opposite contention (that undervotes on Q1 do not count toward a determination of Q1).

I haven't seen a definitive source, either way. Hopefully the tally will be so skewed in favor of YES that the point becomes irrelevant.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Can I have your autograph? You're famous.

[goldstategop]

hehehe... well that was scary! ;-)

[William McKinley]

Actually, the judge didn't rule on the second thing you said. What happened was the judge's ruling on the first thing you mentioned left the door open for Davis to make a post-election challenge on the second part. See here.

Section 11384 of the election code, which is still intact, states, "If a majority of the votes in a recall proposal are 'Yes,' the officer sought to be recalled shall be removed from office upon qualification of his successor." Before Moskowitz's decision, the only valid ballots in a recall race would be those that made a choice in the first "Yes or No" question. Therefore, the issue of a majority in such an election is straightforward. If "Yes" beats "No" in a two-part choice, by the laws of mathematics, the "Yes" votes would constitute a majority. However, by allowing ballots to remain valid even if a choice was not made on the original "Yes or No" question, Justice Moskowitz has perhaps introduced a third category—"Abstain."

A possible outcome on October 7 could be a plurality victory of "Yes" over "No" whereby "Yes" votes do not constitute a majority of all votes, when the ballots of those that "Abstained" are included. Consider the following scenario. Recent polling data suggest that in a straight "Yes or No" question, 51 percent of the electorate would choose to recall the governor. For the sake of argument, let us suppose that on election night, "Yes" beats "No" by a tally of 51 to 49 percent. As to the number of abstentions, estimates of recent recall elections in local races peg that figure somewhere between 4 to 8 percent. Let's pick the middle of the range and assume that the number of abstentions on election night will be 6 percent. Next, let us put the abstentions in the total pool of votes and calculate the relative percentages. The new figures would be as follows: Yes (48 percent); No (46 percent); and Abstain (6 percent).

All of this to the contrary, the plain language of section 11384 clearly indicates that a "majority" refers to a majority of the Yes/No votes cast on the "recall proposal." Judge Moskowitz attempted to address this question in his ruling, although his answer left the door open for an aggressive Davis to challenge the legality and legitimacy of an outcome similar to that described above. One can easily imagine a friendly state court judge holding that, in light of Judge Moskowitz's ruling, a majority of all voters in the recall election did not choose to recall the governor.

[MinuteGal]

LOVED that pic in #566. Registered forgot to tuck one thing into the photo......a paper shredder about to be plugged in!

Leni

[carton253]

Stop it! What did poor little Smeagol ever do to you that you would insult him like that? Well?

[AFPhys]

All of the exit polls are moot if they don't say, "by the way, did you figure out how to vote on Question #1: Recall or not?"

[Reagan Man]

Very weak rebuttal.

If you want to fabricate your own standards for what makes a conservative and a Republican, have at it. It's a free country. There are existing standards in the world of American politics and in the political arena, that clearly define what a liberal is, what a Democrat is, what a conservative is, what a Republican is and so on and so forth. That holds true across the political spectrum. Slight variations from the basic theme of each political party is acceptable. When you break ranks with existing party standards, you're usually perceived as a political independent. However, if you pick and choose what ideology or philosophy you believe in and what side looks good at a specific moment in time, that usually makes you a centrist, as in wishy-washy fencesitter. Under that set of standards, if you call yourself a Republican, more then likely you're really a RINO. Same holds true if you call yourself a conservative, more then likely you're a CINO.

[Quilla]

No wonder Clinton always liked her:

[null and void]

Where are these figures from?

Coop said: "My source is my cousin's best friend's lover's mother-in-law. That's all I can say."

Didn't say whether it was the gay lover or the straight lover, without this critical information, I wouldn't trust the data...

[Sabertooth]

Tom did it for the money, not principles.

$3 million of Indian gambling money. Like Judas' 30 pieces of silver....

C'mon, that's silly.

Did Schwarzenegger "do it for the money?" He took in four times more than McClintock did, all told.

Campaigns need money. All donors are "special interests." Comes with the terrirory. Big deal.

This thread is more for bashing Davis, fair enough?

[GOPrincess]

"I find it incredible that anyone with an IQ over 75 would skip voting on Question 1. Just incredible."

I've got a Phi Beta Kappa key, thank you very much, and I didn't actually skip voting on it, I simply startled myself realizing I'd momentarily forgotten about it, when it was so incredibly important. I should have simply started at the top left of the ballot instead of zeroing in on the propositions, which were easy to differentiate from the candidate lists. This is the first time in over 20 years of voting I've had this kind of ballot and the layout, including the mess of 135 non-alphabetical names, was just a little weird. (Actually filling in the ballot, blacking the circles, was no big deal at all.) Hopefully my "Uh-oh, caught it!" experience and that of a couple others here was an aberration and it was a piece of cake for most voters, who hopefully also started right at the top left corner where they couldn't miss the important question. :)

[abnegation]

Smeagol was the "sweet" one. Gollum was the "mean" one. In any case I can hear the old bat saying "my precious" to BC.

[LizardQueen]

Exit polling:

RECALL: No - 57%, Yes - 43%

Bustamante - 33%

Schwarzenegger - 30%

McClintock - 17%

I wouldn't panic just yet. It's only around mid-day Cali time, and a lot of the working people probably have yet to vote. I wouldn't be surprised to see the proportion of Recall-yes and pro-Arnie votes go up once the people who have jobs leave work for the day and head for the polls.

Just my $.02.

LQ

[Cboldt]

Thanks for the link. Haven't read it yet. Sounds as though the effect of undervotes on Q1 is undecided at this juncture, and may remain that way pending election results and the possibilitiy of litigation on that very point.

[GOPrincess]

"I hope Davis stays in office. He won't fix things. The Democrats will then face a real election in a couple of years and hopefully have messed up the state so bad a conservative republican will be possible for victory."

As a tax-paying Californian I thank you for your empathy and compassion for our situation.

The recall amendment was passed in 1911 specifically to allow us to protect ourselves and I'm happy if we can avail ourselves of that Constitutional right.

[hoosiermama]

Too many people might think it's a people shredder.....Those mean republicans.....They probably like SH too. /sarc

Holding my breath here! Can't keep away from FR. Hopfully the tide is turning toward a more conservative nation.