The Morristown, New Jersey Daily Record has this very long and complete story about the nine candidates for New Jersey Governor who have not been getting much publicity. The story, of course, features the Libertarian Party candidate and the Socialist Party candidate, and also the seven independent candidates other than Chris Daggett.
On October 21, the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation, a non-profit corporation, announced that it has completed work on freely available open source technology for vote-counting machines. “Open source” means that the software programs would be publicly available, so that any programmer could review it for accuracy and reliability. The corporations that produce vote-counting machines generally keep their computer program a trade secret, which makes it difficult for outside experts to know how reliable it is and how it might be compromised by skillful hackers. See this story from Wired magazine.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is holding a partisan election for Mayor on November 3, 2009. The incumbent Mayor, Luke Ravenstahl, is the nominee of both the Democratic and Republican Parties (he is a Democrat, and he won the Republican nomination at the May primary by write-in votes). He has two strong independent opponents, Franco Harris and Kevin Acklin. Harris is an independent by conviction. Acklin decided to run as an independent, instead of in the Republican primary, because he knows that the it would be virtually impossible for a Republican to be elected in a Pittsburgh city election. All three candidates are well-funded. See this newspaper story about the race, which focuses on the fact that all three candidates are between ages 29 and 32. Thanks to Darcy Richardson for this news.
The October 25 Los Angeles Times has this even-handed analysis of the issue of whether petition signatures should be private. The issue arose in Washington state, around the R-71 Referendum petition that forced a public vote on the bill passed this year by the legislature for civil unions. The Times article correctly mentions that California law already requires that petitions for ballot measures are private.
California State Senator Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) spoke at a forum, “What Ails California?”, held on the University of California Berkeley campus on October 23. She was a member of a panel that was discussing solutions to California’s government problems. The meeting was not specifically about the “top-two” ballot measure in June 2010, but the issue arose.
Hancock said to beware of the measure, because, in her opinion, it would raise the cost of campaigning. She said that the system, by requiring candidates to run two different campaigns before the entire electorate (the June campaign and the November campaign), would make it even more expensive to run for office than is currently the case.
Certain other political leaders who have voiced support for the general concept of a more open primary process are not entirely happy with the specific “top-two” measure that will be on the California ballot. Tom Campbell, a former Congressman and a prominent candidate for Governor in next year’s Republican primary, said in an e-mail dated October 20, “I do not favor preventing write-ins, or making it difficult for third parties to appear on the initial (primary) ballot.” The California law has already been changed to say that write-ins for Congress and state office in November should never be counted, but that law will not go into effect unless the voters vote for the “top-two” measure. Also, the new law would not permit members of unqualified parties to list their party preference on any ballot, so it does not treat all candidates equally.
Jim Brulte, former leader of the Republicans in each house of the legislature, and Joel Fox, former president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, also appeared on panels at the “What Ails California?” forum. Each expressed general support for a more open primary process, but afterwards each said in an e-mail that they have not endorsed the specific proposal that will be on the 2010 ballot. Professor Sherry Bebitch Jeffe also says she favors a more open primary process, but that she has not come to a conclusion about the 2010 ballot measure. Proponents of a more open primary process are free to support a classic open primary for California. A classic open primary, used in 22 states, eliminates the practice of asking voters to indicate membership in a party on voter registration forms. Then, each voter on primary day is free to vote in any party’s primary ballot. Oddly enough, no political leader in California ever suggests that idea. Proponents of “top-two”, by insisting on calling “top-two” an “open primary”, have injured any future attempt to get a true open primary established in California, by muddying the public understanding of a true open primary.
