On July 12, California held a special election to fill the empty seat in the 36th U.S. House district. The only candidates on the ballot were Republican Craig Huey, who received 34,636 votes, and Democrat Janice Hahn, who received 41,585. This is not a final tally. The district has 342,492 registered voters.
If the top-two system had not been in force, there would also have been a Libertarian candidate on this ballot, and a Peace & Freedom Party candidate on this ballot, and some independent candidates on the ballot.
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How many gerrymander robot party hacks will lose in 2012 due to the combined effects of the top 2 primary and the revised CA gerrymander commission ???
Stay tuned.
Hope for 100 percent of the MONSTERS to LOSE — U.S.A. Reps and CA legislature – both houses.
Gerrymandering seems to have won the day here in this election.
As well as the ludicrous top-two system in California.
If the Open Primary reform not taken place, it is unlikely that there would have been any independent candidates on the ballot because of the high petition thresholds, even in special elections.
In the 41 special elections prior to the Open Primary reform, there were 4 independent candidates. In the 3 special elections since, there have been 5.
Jim, an important distinction to make Is between independent and libertarian/peace and freedom. The libertarian and the p.a.f candidates would have appeared on the ballot had prop 14 not been in effect.
And of course the AIP, again, didn’t have a candidate running
Cody Quirk
You are wrong. One AIP filed. I informed the LA County
Registrar of Votes that he was not qualified. They then
removed him. Then the AIP endorsed Mr. Craig Huey.
The Republican Party did not endorse Mr. Huey, only
the AIP gave him an endorsement.
Huey won a spot in the top two and beat out Secretary of State Bowan for that spot in the top two.
Please get your facts correct.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Vice Chairman,
American Independent Party
#7 The Libertarian and the Peace&Freedom candidate did appear on the special primary ballot along with two independents, and a Coffee candidate.
Richard Winger claimed that under the old partisan primary system that the two independents and the Coffee party candidate would have been on the special general election ballot. That simply is quite improbable.
#10 I was discussing the general election ballot. Yes, I knew that all those candidates appeared on the primary ballot. But my point is is that since top two is in place, NONE of the candidates outside of the republocrats got on the general election ballot. It doesn’t really matter whether or not your independent and “Coffee” candidate might no have gotten on the ballot in the old system; they still didn’t get on the g.e. Ballot because of top two. So let’s go back to the old system where voters had more choices and these candidates might have gotten on the ballot.
#10, under California’s old system, the Coffee Party and the two independents would have needed 500 signatures, since it is a special election. It is very likely they all would have been on the July 2011 ballot. Under the old law, all independent candidates, no matter how few votes they got in the first round, went on the ballot in the second round, unless two of them were registered into the same unqualified party. In that case, only the one with more votes than the other from that same unqualified party would have been in the second round.
What’s most interesting about this particular election is that the first round held in May coincided with run-off elections from March first round elections in part of the District. Which one would expect would help somewhat to increase voter turn-out. Yet even-though the official count hasn’t been posted, this run-off is already slightly over 20% larger in ballots cast. Do you have any comments about this curious situation?
Gee – a majority winner in a gerrymander district in a vacancy special election.
The EVIL gerrymander system continues.
P.R. Now —
Total Votes / Total Seats = EQUAL votes required for each seat winner.
NO vacancy special elections — candidate/incumbent replacment rank order lists.
A WHOLE lot of stuff being done by the EVIL gerrymander oligarchs is to DISTRACT attention — from the accumulated economic CATASTROPHE due to statist Ponzi schemes — social UN-security, medi-UNcare, etc. etc. etc.
The CA OLD election system is DEAD — like slavery is DEAD.
A total waste of time about doing what if’s regarding the OLD DEAD system in CA.
If there was about 20% turnout for the election, then the Democrat won the votes of about 12.5% of the normal voting electorate at large. So you can win a house seat if you get the devotion of 12.5% of voters. How’s that hope and change workin’ out for you?
He was still a GOP candidate who was endorsed and funded by many Republicans- including Tom McClintock, Dana Rohrabacher, Mike Pence, Ed Royce, etc.
And again, there was NO AMERICAN INDEPENDENT candidate running!
YOU get your facts right, dumb fuck.
#12 In the 41 special elections prior to Proposition 14, there were 4 candidates not affiliated with a qualified party. In the 4 special elections since, there have been 5.
It is absolutely unlikely that there would have been 3 such candidates under the old regime where they would have needed to get 500 signatures. There has been a 1181% increase in the rate of such candidacies since the ballot barricades have been torn down.
When was the last time there were two independent candidates for a special election for congress or the legislature?
#13 the only runoffs were for the LA school and community college districts. All the LA city council races were decided in March, and the city and county election bodies are separate.
The special primary was probably enough of a wake up call that the Democrats did a little bit of GOTV effort.
#15 Los Angeles has horrible turnout for special elections. The news media is not going to pay attention to an election in a small fragment of the market.
#16 The American Independent Party endorsed Craig Huey. That information was distributed on the sample ballot.
#16 look who has a bad temper…I never thought that people could get so passionate over a small, insignificant special election and use the f word. Have some dignity, Cody.