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SACRAMENTO (CBS SF) – Supporters of a plan to divide California into six sates can begin collecting signatures to get the proposal on the ballot. Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced that the proposed ballot initiative – known as Six Californias – could move forward Tuesday. Under the plan, from venture capitalist Tim Draper, most of the Bay Area would be considered “Silicon Valley.” Napa, Sonoma and Marin Counties would become part of “North California.”

Beginning next month, Californians for the first time will be able to use the Internet to register to vote, giving them about six weeks of online access to register in time to participate in the Nov. 6 presidential election. In an advisory sent late Wednesday, the office of Secretary of State Debra Bowen informed the state's 58 county elections officers that the California Online Voter Registration System is in its final stages of testing and will become operational in early September. Software upgrades are scheduled to be electronically transmitted to the counties Friday, with online training for local officials to...

Republican Craig Huey, an advertising executive, could make a surprise advance in California's Democratic-leaning 36th District special election, according to initial results in Tuesday's race to replace Democrat Jane Harman. Due to the Los Angeles County district's Democratic lean, two Democrats were expected to top last night's "jungle primary," which featured 16 candidates of all parties running on a single ballot. But Huey narrowly edged out California Secretary of State Debra Bowen (D) by 206 votes for the second-place spot, according to preliminary results. Staff for Bowen on Tuesday night noted that 9,811 votes remained to be counted. "We are...

Republicans on Monday accused the state Democratic Party and Secretary of State Debra Bowen of using "illegal campaign tactics" to influence voters to cast a ballot for late Sen. Jenny Oropeza in a Long Beach state Senate district. Democrat Oropeza died unexpectedly last month but remains as a candidate for re-election on today's ballot. The California Democratic Party recently sent Democratic and decline-to-state voters in the district a letter from Bowen, a Democrat, outlining what would happen if Oropeza wins. "Jenny Oropeza's name is on the ballot. You have the right to vote for her," the letter reads. "If you...

FRESNO, Calif. -- Elections officials in Fresno County say hundreds of thousands of voters are getting ballots that incorrectly describe the ballot measure that would suspend the state's greenhouse gas emissions law. The county's 380,000 voters are being issued ballots that characterize Proposition 23 as requiring "major polluters" to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A Sacramento judge threw out that wording earlier this year, and ordered the language to be changed from "major polluters" to "major sources of emissions."

No offense to the citizens of Kenya, or any other nation for that matter, but the current president of the United States—Barack Hussein Obama II—is spending a great deal of his campaign supporter's money fending off what should be a really simple discovery: the vault version of his original birth certificate. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., has filed H.R. 1503, an amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which increased required campaign fund disclosure and was later amended to establish the Federal Elections Commission. Posey's Bill would prevent future similar obstructions of justice and would "require the principal campaign...

Lightfoot v. Bowen: A new lawsuit Today, December 3, 2008, Dr. Orly Taitz, DDS Esq filed a second lawsuit in the Supreme Court of California; Lightfoot v. Bowen, docket number S168690. This is a "Petition for Extraordinary Writ of Mandamus for Stay". The coversheet with the submission information can be found here. Orly hopes that the California Supreme Court will either issue an emergency stay of the voting of the electors, or decline to hear the case because it is a federal issue. Either way, Orly hopes that the California Supreme Court will make this pronouncement in a timely manner....

Disenfranchised - Where's Secretary of State Debra Bowen when we need her? David O. Powell - Pasadena PasadenaPundit.com I believe I have voted in every election since I moved back to Pasadena 39 years ago. Being aged and infirm, I applied for permanent absentee status after receipt of my sample ballot for the April 17 election. I never received my absentee ballot. I e-mailed the mayor asking for an explanation. Some three weeks later I received a very comprehensive response from the City Clerk. The city's procedures for obtaining a list of permanent absentees from the County make it virtually...

A Berkeley lawyer who has fought electronic voting in California and a half-dozen other states has been tapped by California Secretary of State Debra Bowen as her deputy in charge of voting machinery. Lowell Finley, co-founder and co-director of the election-integrity group Voter Action, has pulled out of lawsuits against elections officials in California, Florida, Ohio and other states in order to accept a post of deputy secretary of state. Bowen, who was sworn in Monday, still is figuring out the management structure for the office, but she expects Finley to have a lead role in her promised "top-to-bottom review"...

Sequoia touch-screen is California's most widely used Days before the election, state officials have learned that California's most widely used electronic voting machines feature a button in back that can allow someone to vote multiple times. Several computer scientists said Wednesday that the vulnerability found in all touch-screen machines sold by Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems was not especially great because using the yellow button for vote fraud would require reaching far behind the voting machine twice and triggering two beeps. "If the machine beeps loudly and someone has their arms wrapped around the machine, the poll workers are going to...

If she weren't running for secretary of state, Debra Bowen might consider Santa Cruz native Bruce McPherson the best fit for the job. As state senators, both traveled to Iceland to study geothermal energy; when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed McPherson to fill the secretary of state post last year, Bowen was part of the unanimous vote that confirmed him. "I consider him a friend," said Bowen, D-Redondo Beach. "When the governor nominated Bruce, I told him that I thought he was the second best person for the job." This November, Bowen hopes voters will agree with her. Bowen and McPherson,...

THE TWO major-party candidates for California secretary of state could not be more different in style or in philosophy about the role of the office. Incumbent Bruce McPherson, a Republican, is an engaging, low-key centrist with great faith in modern electronic voting systems and great concern about the potential for shenanigans at polling places. Sen. Debra Bowen, a Democrat who brings a lawyerly edge and high-tech guile in her approach to public policy, is highly skeptical about the current safeguards on electronic voting systems. One trait these two veteran politicians share is a high level of competence. It's unfortunate they...

SACRAMENTO – Normally ho-hum, the campaign for secretary of state could be seen as a referendum on whether Californians trust new, federally mandated electronic voting systems and how they feel about requiring identification at the polls. The Nov. 7 election also is the first chance voters have to judge appointed incumbent Bruce McPherson, who was forced to spend most of his early tenure cleaning up a political and fiscal quagmire left by his predecessor, Kevin Shelley, a Democrat who resigned under pressure. PROFILES Bruce McPherson RepublicanAge: 62 Residence: Santa Cruz Background: Appointed secretary of state in March 2005 to fill...

Incumbent McPherson defends reliability of the machines as challenger Bowen says they need stricter monitoring. In their only face-to-face debate before the November election, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson and his challenger, state Sen. Debra Bowen, on Wednesday sharply disagreed about the reliability and vulnerability of electronic-voting machines used by many California counties. Bowen, a Democrat from Marina del Rey, argued that electronic slot machines face greater scrutiny than machines that count votes in nearly two dozen of the state's 58 counties. If elected, she said, she would revisit the systems that have been approved by the state, and create...

Click Here To Watch Debate (CBS 5 / The Chronicle) SAN FRANCISCO--The San Francisco Chronicle Editorial board hosted a 60-minute debate between attorney general candidates Jerry Brown and Chuck Poochigian on Thursday afternoon at the CBS 5 studios in San Francisco. This was the first debate between the two candidates, and is the only one currently scheduled. The debate is presented via streaming video here on CBS5.com and is the first of several Chronicle Editorial board candidate debates that will be offered via live and tape streams here on CBS5.com. Other upcoming debates will include: Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2...

Bowen punished by her own party South Bay state senator refused to blindly back a spending bill, prompting retaliation by Democrats. SACRAMENTO -- South Bay Sen. Debra Bowen has been dumped from a powerful committee that oversees spending measures, apparently for refusing to commit blindly to bills pushed by Democratic Party leaders. Little is being said officially about the punishment, which could dampen the Redondo Beach Democrat's fund-raising efforts but burnish her independent credentials in a looming campaign for secretary of state. In a twist, Bowen also had to cast a vote on her own fate as well. The rebellion...