On February 10, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1413, which removes write-in space from general election ballots for Congress and state partisan office. California is the only state that has ever had write-ins, but which doesn’t have them any longer, except for Louisiana. States that formerly did not have write-in space on general election ballots, but added such space during the last 45 years, are Florida, Indiana, Delaware, and Ohio.
California is now one of only six states that have no write-in space on the November ballot for Congress.
14th Amdt, Sec. 2 is still in the nearly dead U.S.A. Const.
In Alabama, we have the provision for write-in voting in the general election ballot. But we need better than this.
This is why in Alabama all of us need to contact the members of the CONSTITUTION, CAMPAIGN FINANCE, ETHICS AND ELECTIONS COMMITTEE and ask for these committee members to vote for either SB 15 and/or SB 55.
The members names and email addresses of these Senators are:
Bryan Taylor <bryan.taylor@alsenate.org
Phil Williams <philw.williams@alsenate.gov
Paul Bussman <p_bussman@bellsouth.net
Shadrack Mcgill shadrick.mcgill@alsenate.org
Trip Pittman <trip.pittman@alsenate.gov
Tammy Irons<tammy@ironslawfirm.com
Two senators who are members of this committee and who do not have accessible email addresses. However their names and telephone numbers are:
Billy Williams (334) 775-3291
Arthur Orr (334) 242-7891
I trust all who can will contact these senators and ask them to support these good bills.
AB 1413 violates Article II, Section 5 of the California Constitution, by making a class distinction on the basis of party preference of a voter. That is, California is having regard for the party preference of certain voters by preventing candidates who share their political viewpoint from expressing that viewpoint on the ballot.
It also prevents certain candidates from having their party preference appear on the ballot.
The modicum of support argument does not apply. All candidates who secure 40 signatures for district offices, and 65 for statewide office have demonstrated the same level of support for their candidacy.
What is California’s interest? Preventing voters from being exposed to a less popular political beliefs? Preventing voters from knowing what a candidate’s actual beliefs are?
1. This is “top-two” carried to its logical conclusion.
2. I’m convinced that J. Riley is Demo Rep.
Jim Riley is a knowledgeable poster who lives in Texas and uses his real name.
Demorep is another knowledgeable poster who lives in Michigan.
#4 California has always (for the last century) recognized that voters may be affiliated with a non-qualified party. Though it does not track registrations with individual non-qualified parties, it does maintain records of individual voter registrations, and aggregates the total number of voter registrations with non-qualified parties.
California has a very simple system. A voter’s political affiliation is what they indicate when they register to vote, by either marking a box for a qualified party; writing the name of a non-qualified party; or either affirmatively indicating they have no affiliation or not indicating an affiliation.
There were 115,192 California voters affiliated with non-qualified parties as of January 3, 2012. Prior to the June 2010 election at which Proposition 14 was approved, the SOS sent a advisory to county election officials emphasizing that even though voters affiliated with non-qualified parties were distinct from Decline To State voters, that both groups would be able to vote in the Republican and Democratic primaries.
Proposition 14 explicitly said that political affiliations would be converted to party preferences, and the implementing legislation did exactly that. The conversion recognized two classes of registrations: (a) affiliated with a political party, and (b) Declined to State. There was no distinction made between whether an affiliation is with a qualified or nonqualified party.
There is no evidence that county election officials did not follow the law. There were a few counties, including Santa Cruz and Fresno, where “Independent” registrations had been treated as an affiliation with the “Independent Party” which have been converted to No Party Preference. It is possible that the Secretary of State directed these counties to make the change, in her role of ensuring uniform application of state election laws by the counties.
The implementing legislation for Proposition 14 explicitly says that the party preference of a candidate is that which they had indicated “upon their affidavit of voter registration”.
This latest legislation compels a candidate on a sworn application to lie.
How many folks have moved from Michigan to Texas due to Great Depression I in 1929-1941 and even Great Depression II in 2006-XXXX ???
Mr. Winger is THE knowledgeable super-expert in chaos CA — reporting nonstop on the attacks on Democracy on many Fronts – legislative, executive and judicial at various times and places.
Richard, do you know if there will be a challenge to this new law?
#8, I don’t know. The author of AB 1413, Assemblyman Paul Fong, chair of the Assembly Elections Committee, has told a few people that even though he is the author of the bill eliminating write-in space, he tends to think write-in space is a good idea, and therefore he may introduce a bill soon to put it back again.
ANY body remember the write in election of Senator M in frozen Alaska ??? (after all sorts of machinations in the courts, etc.) — regardless of the EVIL robot party hack Donkey/Elephants.
How many versions of the M word were deemed LEGAL votes ???
A bit more —
Does the BAN super-computer database show how many folks have been elected to top offices by write-in votes ???
esp. members of the gerrymander Congress and each gerrymander State legislature (especially after a primary election write-in effort).
#9 Since it still exists for nonpartisan offices, it would be easy enough to restore, and a sore loser provision could be added. If the winner of the general election receives fewer than 45% of the vote, a runoff would be held.
The primary should be moved to August. It was moved to June as a cost-cutting measure towards the end of WWII when it was merged with the presidential primary, which had been in May. It is disingenuous to believe that the presidential primary will remain in June. The Democrats didn’t care whether the Republicans participated in the national campaign, and didn’t need a primary for themselves. It would be horrid to move the 2016 primary to February just to accommodate presidential elections.
California should also declare void any election in which a candidate dies prior to the election, and simply hold a special election. This would apply both to the primary and the general election.
California should go ahead and formally recognize major and minor parties, with the registration requirement for minor parties 100 registered voters statewide. Any new party would qualify by a petition with 100 or more voters who are willing to switch their affiliation. When validating the petition, county election officials would verify the intent of voters to change their affiliation.
If a voter attempted to register with a non-party, county election officials would inform the voter and classify him as undeclared (using Alaska system of a distinction between undeclared and nonpartisan).
Minor parties could be organized or unorganized. A petition by a small number of registered voters affiliated with an unorganized party (larger of 1% or 10 voters) would trigger a state organizing convention.
Organized parties would have:
(1) A name (in as many languages as elections are conducted in). Since new parties would qualify only by petition, this would address concerns about confusing names, since this could be reviewed prior to the beginning of the petition drive.
(2) A set of rules (filed with the USDOJ) which would provide for a state executive committee and essential officers, and county executive committees for any interaction with county election officials, procedures for designating presidential candidates and electors and making of sample ballot endorsements for voter-nominated offices.
(3) A biennial state convention.
(4) Effective participation in the governance of the party by voters who are registered with the party. This would not preclude Libertarian(tm) groups organizing as PACs, they just would not function as political parties recognized by the State. Parties could set length of affiliation to participate in their affairs, not to exceed some reasonable limit (6 months or a year?). There would no restricts on leaving a party.
Elections of party officers would be moved to odd years, and be conducted as all mail ballots.
Special elections for legislatures and Congress (including the Senate) would be by all-mail elections using IRV. Since there would be a single race and all ballots would be returned to a relatively few sites (in each county), it would be quite feasible for voters simply to use numerals on a single sheet of paper, with a hand count conducted by citizen tellers (the tellers would be randomly selected just like jurors are).
Presidential primaries should be made direct primaries. California parties may designate other state results to be included in their vote total.
If a party does not conduct a presidential primary, then candidates would be placed on the general election ballot by petition (say 1000 signatures of any voters). If a candidate wished to have a party affiliation appear on the ballot, he would need a petition with signatures of party members (1% or 1000 signatures, whichever is larger).
#10 Under a Top 2 Open Primary, 2 of the 3 ‘M’s (Miller and Murkowski) would likely have qualified for the general election. The 3rd (McAdams) was just a spoiler.