On November 2, 2010, Pamela J. Brown, Libertarian nominee for Lieutenant Governor of California, received 5.86% of the vote. That is the highest share of the vote any candidate for that office (other than Democratic and Republican nominees) has received since 1922. The race also included nominees of the Democratic, Republican, American Independent, Green, and Peace & Freedom Parties. The total share of the vote going to minor party candidates in that race was 10.94%.
Most observers credit Brown’s relatively high showing to her statement in the Voters Guide. The campaign statement for all candidates for Lieutenant Governor can be read at this link on the Secretary of State’s web page. Every registered voter in California received this guide in the mail. The Secretary of State charges $25 per word, so Brown spent quite a bit of money on her statement.
The minor party candidate in 1922 who received a higher percentage for Lieutenant Governor was the Socialist Party nominee, who received 6.55 in a 3-party race.
Minor party candidates in 2010 for California Insurance Commissioner received, together, 11.85%, but no particular minor party candidate received as much as 4%.
Any estimate of what percentage of the voters actually read the CA voter guides ???
Are they used to help ILLITERATE folks learn how to read — especially the stuff on ballots ???
P.R. and App.V.
Surveys have shown that over half of registered California voters say they read the guide, if for no other reason than to help voters decide how to vote on ballot measures. Each ballot measure is in the guide, and there are arguments on each side printed in the guide. Other states that postally mail voter guides to all the registered voters are Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Montana and maybe others.
# 2 Thus – the minority of the voters have flaming guesses about what the zillion ballot issues in CA mean ??? — or do they automatically vote NO as a matter of self defense and total lack of trust about all things political ???
— i.e. the STRIKE BACK *moron* NO votes ???
WOOT YEAH LIBERTARIANS!!!
It’s always possible to just read the summary of a ballot measure that is printed on the ballot, and make a decision based on that.
Montana did have a guide but it only listed ballot measures and didn’t list party statements.
Not to be overly cynical, but don’t you think that the reasons Pamela Brown did better than other Libertarian candidates (and than other third party candidates for Lieutenant Governor) might be more other factors than the quality of her ballot pamphlet statement or other campaigning? Three obvious factors are that she has the same surname as Jerry Brown, the top of the ticket major party candidate, that the Republican candidate for the same office is Latino (thus alienating some substantial number of voters who might otherwise vote Republican, though also drawing some Latino voters who wouldn’t otherwise vote Republican), and that she was the only woman in the race.
In reality, third party candidates for statewide office in California rarely have the resources to campaign enough to actually influence the proportion of votes they get.
And to show that I’m not picking on Pamela Brown, I’ll note that the two candidates from my own Peace and Freedom Party who did best (Karen Martinez for Controller and Dina Padilla for Insurance Commissioner) were both women with Spanish surnames who were the only women and the only ones with common clearly Spanish surnames in their contests (the AIP candidate for Controller had an unusual surname, Beliz, that is probably of Spanish origin but might not be, and probably wouldn’t be obviously Spanish to Latino voters looking at a ballot with six candidates they didn’t really know much about).