On March 22, California State Senator Ben Allen introduced SCA 21. It says that write-in candidates for a partisan office in the primary cannot advance to the general election, even if they place second, unless they receive at least 65 write-ins (if running for statewide office) or 40 write-ins (if running for U.S. House or legislature).
Currently, anyone who comes in second for a partisan office in the primary advances to November, even if the write-in total is only one vote. If the legislature approves this idea, it would then go on the ballot for a vote of the voters, because it is a constitutional amendment, and it amends the part of the State Constitution that set up the top-two system. Thanks to Dave Kadlecek for this news.
So if no one was on the ballot and there were only write-ins, and none of them got over this arbitrary vote total would there even be a general election?
Yet another reason —
NO primaries = reduce TV attack ad torture a bit on the voters.
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PR and AppV
Brandon, the bill only refers to primary elections in which at least one person’s name was printed on the primary ballot. If there were no names printed on the primary ballot, then even a single write-in would advance someone to November (if that person came in first or second).
>write-in candidates for a partisan office in the primary cannot advance to the general election, even if they place second ..
Isn’t this also true even if they place first, with the way the bill is written?
As written, the bill only applies to write-in candidates for whom the other candidate in the top two was the only candidate on the ballot. Thus if all candidates are write-ins, it wouldn’t apply, if more than one candidate was on the ballot, it wouldn’t apply, and if two write-in candidates both finished ahead of the sole candidate on the ballot, if wouldn’t apply. However, it would apply if a write-in candidate finished first, ahead of the sole candidate on the ballot.
In real life, a sole candidate on the ballot will get at least 40 votes for a district office and at least 65 votes for a statewide office, as will at least two candidates of two or more that are on the ballot, so the only candidates who actually would be excluded by this provision, should it become law, are write-in candidates who came in second to a sole candidate on the ballot.
This proposed constitutional amendment is just the latest of attempts by the legislature to eliminate one of the few positive aspects of “top two” for third party and independent candidates, that they can sometimes make it to the general election as a write-in when only one candidate appears on the ballot, because top two’s constitutional provisions wiped out a previous statutory requirement that to continue to the general election a write-in candidate in the primary get votes equal to 1% of those for the office in the previous general election (usually impossible for third party candidates to meet, because fewer voters than that were even eligible to vote in their parties’ primaries). Besides a clearly unconstitutional bill to reinstate the statutory requirement, a bill was also introduced to require write-in candidates who came in first or second in the primary to pay a filing fee in order for their names to appear on the general election ballot.
How many CA top 2 primary write-ins have been elected in general elections thus far ???
Please. This is too ridiculous to even discuss. 65 votes minimum for statewide office? Requires a constitutional amendment? In a state where the last statewide election vote total was more than ten million votes? Really? California is a joke.
Sorry – the INSANITY of the gerrymander oligarchs must be discussed.
See the INSANE Kaiser Bill in 1914 and the INSANE A. Hitler in 1939 –
along with 2018 current crop of top INSANE HACKS in high places.
The disdain for one vote by others is a pluralistic choice. Some see 52.7% of the vote as equally insignificant.
Are you ready for respect and appreciation for every vote as a potential tie-breaker, team psychology where single votes, the more the better, are appreciated and pure proportional representation (PPR) is recognised as the only legitimate voting system?
The United Coalition has been using PPR for more than 23 consecutive years despite the dividers and sceptics who aren’t interested in the whole.
http://www.international-parliament.org/ucc.html
The proposed amendment was filed on March 22 a couple of weeks after the filing deadline. Some legislators are aggrieved that other candidates can get on the ballot so easily.
They think: Do you know how many $100 meals paid for by lobbyists I have had to endure? Sometimes I think that is all I do when I’m in Sacramento. And it doesn’t get any better when I’m home. And don’t get me started about the wine. And the junkets – these aren’t cheapies to Las Vegas, some are to Asia or Europe. If my wife came, I’d have to pay her expenses, so I go alone. Fortunately, the errm pedicures are comped.
The filing fee for senator is $1100. in 2014, Ben Allen ran for an open senate seat against six other Democrats and one independent. He squeaked through the primary with 22%, and then won in November.
The two finalists, Allen and Sandra Fluke each raised $1.5 million. The three Democrats who only raised $360K, $320K, and $65K got 4.4%, 2.9%, and 1.4% of the vote.
The lone independent managed to get 17.4% with 138K, undoubtedly aided by being the only candidate who was not a Democrat.
Betsy Butler, a former Assembly-member got 16.5% for $260K, but she likely had money left over from her 2010 and 2012 campaigns. She raised $1M in 2010, when she won an 8-candidate Democratic primary, and $2M in 2012, where apparently due to the effects of redistricting and Top 2, she narrowly advanced to November from a 3-Democrat, 1-Republican field, and then lost the November election by one percent.
The fifth-place candidate in 2014, managed 15.7% on $700K (for the primary only).
Ben Allen has raised $1.2 million so far for his 2018 re-election campaign. He faces only a Libertarian and an independent candidate. Ironically, the independent, Baron Bruno, ran as an Libertarian for Assembly in 2016 and advanced to the only Top 3 election, as both write-in candidates tied for 2nd with 32 votes against 67,691 for the sole on-ballot candidates. Since both challengers in 2018 paid the filing fee, the new amendment would not apply.
But Allen may have noted that while he had pulled papers a month before the filing deadline. his opponents waited until the last week.
Any modestly serious write-in candidate will have no problem meeting the threshold. It is a busywork amendment that misses the whole problem.
Under the three Top 2 elections, there have been 459 congressional, senatorial, and assembly elections. 45 (9.8%) have drawn only a single candidate. In eight of those, there were no write-in candidates. Of the other 45 races, a write-in candidate would have qualified under the proposed threshold in 37 races.
One can imagine Ben Allen at the rostrum exhorting his fellow solons to pass his amendment.
“Under Top 2, only 1.7% of races have had a single candidate in the general election (puts index finger and thumb of left hand nearly touching to illustrate how tiny this is). Under my amendment this would increase to 3.5% (right hand thrusts skyward to illustrate the magnitude). That (chop with hand) is (chop) more (chop) than (chop) doub- (chop) le (chop).”
Another senator interrupts the histrionics:
“Is that a good thing?”
Ben Allen:
(puzzled) What do you mean?
Other senator:
That there is only one candidate in an election?
Ben Allen:
(pauses as if thinking) “Let me repeat myself, under Top 2, only 1.7% of races have had a single candidate in the general election (puts index finger and thumb of left hand nearly touching to illustrate how tiny this is). Under my amendment this would increase to 3.5% (right hand thrusts skyward to illustrate the magnitude). That (bang with clinched fist on rostrum) is (bang) more (bang) than (bang) doub- (bang) le (bang).”
The better solution would be to eliminate the filing fee, and require all district candidates to submit petitions with 40 signatures. Write-in candidates would be those who missed the filing deadline.
To qualify as a write-in candidate in California, a write-in candidate for statewide office already has to get 65 signatures and a write-in candidate for district office already needs to get 40 signatures. The difference between them and candidates who appear on the primary ballot is that they don’t have to pay a filing fee (or gather much larger numbers of signatures in lieu of filing fee) and the time periods in which the nominating signatures are to be gathered.
Thus Jim Riley’s proposal is just to eliminate the filing fee for district offices in California. I’d support that in general, but for that to work we’d need to get rid of “top two”, because with a large number of candidates, who makes it to the general election becomes essentially a random selection among those with enough money or previous name recognition to mount a serious campaign, often not giving voters a choice among significantly different alternatives. That’s not to say that returning to a system of partisan primaries would be the only fix to this; a “top four” or “top six” primary with instant runoff voting in the general would be another way to guarantee a real choice in the general election without the likelihood of vote-splitting among similar candidates resulting in a winner opposed by most voters.
The filing fee and petition for statewide offices is too small or too few. The filing fee and petition for district office is too high. It doesn’t make sense for a candidate for governor to only have to get 65 signatures while a candidate for assembly district to need 40, while only one in 80 persons may sign the district petition. It is even more absurd when considering county offices. It makes no sense to base the filing fee on the salary of the office.
Ten is probably the outer limit for the number of candidates that a voter can actually consider. Seven might be acceptable, but someone may find a rare counter-example, so bumping it to 10 should cover even those cases.
So simply accept the 10 candidates who submit the most signatures. Perhaps there could be a minimum requirement. 0.01% for a statewide office is 752. For an average assembly district it would be 8, for congress 15, and for senate 16, and permit a candidate to collect 10 times as many as the minimum. Maybe there could be some sort of filing fee, perhaps $10.
Instead of an arbitrary number of candidates on the general election ballot, have the Top N advance, where the number of votes for the Top N candidates is N/N+1 of the total vote. If the Top 1 candidate gets 1/2 of the votes, he would be elected; if the Top 2 candidates get 2/3 of the vote, then Two would advance, etc. There could be an opportunity for eliminated candidates to coalesce their support to qualify additional candidates, and candidates not in the Top 2 to withdraw.
There would be additional rounds as necessary
If more than 10 candidates file for an office, then have an extended collection period for collecting signatures. The 10 candidates with the most signatures would appear on the ballot. The others could be write-ins.
Thanks for reminding me about the petition for write-in candidates. This could continue, it would simply mean that write-in candidates were too late to be printed on the ballot. I guess because some write-in candidates have received as few as one vote, that I was thinking that no one had indicated support.
It takes only 65 votes 🙂 It seems very low.