The Sacramento Bee has this article, in which California Secretary of State Debra Bowen expresses some fears that if Proposition 14 passes and is implemented, the state’s vote-counting equipment may have trouble with the long lists of candidates that would be on a unitary June ballot.
For example, this year, there are 23 candidates for Governor in the six party primaries. No one party primary ballot has a lengthy list of candidates for Governor, but under a top-two system, all 23 candidates would be on a single ballot. There are 7 Democrats, 8 Republicans, 2 American Independent, 2 Green, 1 Libertarian, and 3 Peace & Freedom Party members running for Governor.
Damn! As of 8:49pm, with 8.7 Precincts reporting, its passing with 60.4% of the vote.
So if it does pass, what’s going to be the game plan Richard?
Ballot crowding?
I predict that there will be so many candidates on the next Top Two ballot that the weight will be so great that it will cause the San Andreas fault to crack and cause an earthquake. Then voters will realize what they’ve done with supporting Prop 14.
Or they’ll tire very quickly at the congestion of the ballots with so many canidates and they’ll be confused as to why there are more Rs and Ds than normal on the ballot.
The article talks about possible cost-savings “by only having to print one ballot instead of multiple versions for each party primary”
But that is only true in non-presidential election years, because Prop 14 doesn’t apply to presidential primaries.
Am I wrong, or am I wrong?
See the bedsheet ballot in the Mar. 2010 Iraq election– roughly 2 feet by 3 feet for ONE office — Iraq Parliament — using a P.R. system in each province.
NO primary was used.
A SMALL cost to have some sort of Democracy.
Ms. Bowen is hyperventilating. Now each voter is given one voting card with enough dots to handle at least two elections. In the future a voter may be handed three voting cards labeled and coded, for instance, 1,2 and 3 or 4 or 5. Now I put just one card in the ballot reader slot. Someday I may be required to insert 5. So what?
Instead of speculating and hand-wringing why don’t those who are concerned talk to somebody from Washington State and see how it’s working out for them ?
#4. Since 2008, California has separated their presidential and statewide primaries. The 2008 presidential preference primary was in February, and the statewide primary was in June.