Posted on 08/12/2003 6:12:43 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
No, this isn't a cheap shot based on breakfast cereal, about folks in California being ''fruits and nuts.'' Instead, it is a discussion of the mechanics of the recall election in that state. The media hasn't picked up this story yet, but process of any election has an impact on its results. This is especially true for this election there.
Policy wonks in Ph.D. programs, which I was until a few years ago, study such things as the effect of ballot placement on the number of votes received. It has been solidly established that if names are listed in alphabetical order on the ballot -- all other things being equal -- Anthony A. Aardvark will receive more votes than Ziggy Z. Zymurgy in any election for any office anywhere in the United States. Because of that fact, most jurisdictions – including California – have changed to random assignment of the positions of names on the ballot. That fact will have a profound effect on this particular election in California.
For purposes of this discussion, I'm assuming that Governor Davis will be recalled. His approval ratings are already the lowest ever measured in the history of political polling in California. All candidates to replace him, excepting Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante, will be campaigning first to dump Davis and then to elect them instead. I expect Davis’ approval ratings to descend further, and the vote to remove him from office to be a landslide.
So we turn to the second question on the ballot. Which of the 195 candidates to replace Davis will receive a plurality of votes and become the new Governor? Keep in mind this is a winner-take-all election, so whoever gets the most votes, regardless of how low his/her percentage is of the total votes cast, will get the job.
Some commentators have looked at the number of candidates running and have speculated that the winner may get as little as 5 percent of the total vote. This is absolute nonsense. The mechanics of this election dictate a different result. Here's why:
The longer a ballot is, the more that voters become frustrated. All elections everywhere show the same pattern. The contest at the top of the ticket attracts the largest number of votes cast. The contest or issue at the bottom of the ballot receives the least votes. And the California ballot in this election will be one of the worst ''laundry-list ballots'' in the history of American elections. So not only will the turnout for the recall of Davis be low, the total vote for all replacement candidates will be even lower.
What is mechanically necessary for any voter to cast a vote for any particular candidate to replace Davis? Assume you walk into the booth intending to vote for Arianna Huffington. I don't know why anyone (other than some members of her family and her paid employees) would want to do that, but go with the assumption for the moment. Since the names on the ballot are not alphabetical, you cannot use it like a dictionary, go to the H’s, and cast your vote. You will have to search the entire list to find her name.
Most voters won't go to that trouble. The truth is that all but three of the candidates running are guaranteed also-rans for this precise reason. The votes for only three candidates will decide the outcome of this election: in alphabetical order they are Cruz Bustamante, Bill Simon, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Either Bustamante or Schwarzenegger will win. Simon’s relevance is only whether he will draw enough votes away from Schwarzenegger so Bustamante wins. This assertion has almost nothing to do with what anyone says or does on the campaign trail. Instead, it has everything to do with the mechanics of this election.
The day before the election, all candidates with any budget at all will run advertisements emphasizing their ballot positions – ''Vote for John Smith on line 72.'' But most voters will not read those advertisements, or if they do, will not remember that number when they step into the voting booth. I’ll get to my proof of that in a moment. Suffice to say, only the candidates who can ''cover the polls'' will receive any significant number of votes.
Here's what covering the polls entails: Since California, like all other jurisdictions, forbids electioneering within a certain distance from the door to the polling place, every real candidate (rather than the hopeless ones) must have at least two volunteers at every one of California's tens of thousands of polling places. Two are needed because voters can approach the door from at least two directions. Ideally, five volunteers are needed per polling place because voters sometimes approach in groups and they need to reach them all. There needs to be one backup to cover for the others when they take breaks.
What do these volunteers need to do? They will pass out cards printed in large black letters (for the vision impaired) that state a simple message: ''VOTE FOR JOHN SMITH ON LINE 72.'' The most likely voters for any candidate are those who step into the booth holding that card, with its easy-to-follow instruction.
It will take millions of dollars to establish and man the offices to run that volunteer effort, to have cell phones and backup plans when some volunteers are not on-site before the polls open in the morning, and for transportation and printing costs to get those all-important instruction cards into the hands of potential voters. Only three candidates will have the money, staff, and appeal to volunteers to accomplish this task.
Lt. Governor Bustamante will be able to do this, because he will have the backing of Governor Davis’ machine and money. Of course, his voter card will have two lines, with the first saying, ''VOTE YES FOR DAVIS.''
Arnold Schwarzenegger will be able to do this because he has the money, he'll have the volunteers, and he has the business acumen to build such an organization from the ground up in only two months.
Bill Simon will attempt to do this, pulling together the remnants of his grassroots effort from his losing but close campaign for Governor less than a year ago. But he'll have less money and some of his volunteers will leak away. How many polling places Simon is unable to cover due to lack of money, lack of volunteers, or both, will be key to this election.
And now, the proof of these assertions. Punch card ballots aren't easy to use. It's a little known fact that many more punch card ballots were invalidated in the City of Chicago than in the entire state of Florida in the 2000 presidential election. The situation in Chicago was little reported, because those ''lost'' votes had no theoretical effect on the outcome of the Illinois vote for president.
Combine the normal rate of punch card failures in some California counties with the laundry list ballot (which will effect all polling places in California). Only those voter instruction cards, handed personally to each voter entering every polling place, will pull any substantial vote for any candidate.
Though there have been many jokes about the voters in Palm Beach County, Florida in 2000, I am more forgiving, due to an experience I had as an election judge in Baltimore City three decades ago. John Pica, Jr., a local politician, had been knocked out of the legislature in the primary, but he decided to run a write-in campaign in the general election to get his job back.
He had the money plus enough volunteers to cover the polls. His volunteers gave each voter a card with a pencil attached that spelled out the four steps to cast a write-in vote. As election judges, we were required to stay neutral on the Pica candidacy. However, we were instructed before the polls opened on the process of assisting voters if they sought help. It was that two judges, one Republican and one Democrat, would go in the booth with any voter seeking help. (This is the standard way that judges help physically or visually handicapped voters.) We expected a flood of Pica voters to ask for help.
Only two voters sought help. Instead, voters wrote Pica's name on the face of the machine, or they pulled the final lever and asked us afterwards how to vote for Pica, or they got confused and gave up on that vote. Pica got far less votes from my precinct than people who wanted to vote for him, to my observation.
The point is that all voters – not just in Baltimore City, not just in Palm Beach County – tend to have trouble following instructions. The more difficult the process is, the greater the shrinkage between intention to vote for Smith and valid votes cast for Smith. This general truth about voters will apply big time in the election to choose the replacement for former Governor Gray Davis in California. From that it follows that the results of this election will be at most a three-way race, and 192 of the candidates will simply be irrelevant to the ultimate result.
By what I write I mean no disrespect to the average voter. People routinely handle tasks far more challenging than casting a vote – driving a semi, running a computer, raising children. But all those are daily activities that people are accustomed to. The process of voting comes up only every two or four years. And few in California have ever experienced an election the likes of the recall on October 7.
In this particular election, the mechanical process of casting votes on October 7 itself will have as much (or more) impact on the results as all the campaigning and press coverage that precedes that day. The bellwether for that outcome will be dollars spent, offices opened and manned, and volunteers signed up by Schwarzenegger, Bustamante and Simon, to list the candidates in probable order of finish.
Well, it would be awefully easy thing for them to do so. In fact, its a far easier thing for them to do in order to retain power than any resigning/etc. There they subvert Democracy. Here they capitulate and let us fall flat on our nose. After all, Ahrnold or whoever will be campaigning on FIXING the problem. A failure is judged as a total-failure and responsibility by the Liberal Media. Stop underestimating them. They've managed to take the -$38.2 billion off the rader screen, they can blame defaults on Ahnold, you better believe.
As it stands now, the Legislature is polling lower than Davis out here, there will be sweeping changes there in 04 and beyond...and they KNOW it. Its the bottom of the 9th and these guys need a home run.
Ahrnold's inability to understand Supply Side economics, (demonstrated in his appointment of Warren Buffet as lead Economic Advisor) is the Governor they need as an Intentional walk to bring up their home run slugger.
I know what people have been saying about the media and Democrats, but the media will be changing because viewership/readership is way down and they'll go out of business if they don't change their ways. And, this isn't the NY Times/CNN/NBC/ABC/CBS we're talking about. This is San Fran Chron, Sac Bee, KRON, KNBC, LA Times, etc.
We shall see...
-PJ
I'm all for optmism, and I almost always am optimistic, but there is a Biiiig problem;
Who said anything about a hoax? We have a rotting front porch here just WAITING to collapse. Without immediate spending CUTS we have pass the point of no return 2 years ago.
No, that's why this theory is so dangerous, it doesn't have to be a hoax. There will be a very real crisis in the Golden State. Requiring tax increase for defaulting loans, and tax increases on top of our Workers Comp/Tax Rates/etc are going to drive many many more businesses out of "Coliforniya"
Remember, their home run hitter is blaming the Republicans for every crisis, and Ahnold will indeed bring about their "pitch to hit."
-PJ
If he doesn't slash spending (and really anger State Employee Unions and "the children") it will not be a hoax.
In addition to the recall and governership vote, Ward Connerly's initiative to eliminate racial identification on government-funded programs will be on the ballot.
That makes three.
BTW, anyone have any idea where I could find info re the actual percentage of ballots voted absentee? My line of google inquiry led nowhere.
Tell me how long it takes to find Mr. Bustamante in the supplied list in post #36.
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