On October 14, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed AB 1294, the bill to let all cities and counties use Instant-Runoff Voting for elections for their own officers. His veto message says, “This represents a drastic change to the way we vote. I am concerned that we don’t yet know enough about how voters will react to such a dramatic change. Charter cities and counties already have the right to hold ranked voting elections, yet only one city has done so thus far.”
This is absurd logic. Several cities in California have already voted to use Instant-Runoff Voting, but state law prevents them from implementing their choice because they aren’t charter cities.
Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed same-sex marriage two days ago on the grounds that in 2000, the voters of California had indicated they don’t want to recognize same-sex marriages performed in states such as Massachusetts. He said he is upholding the will of the people.
When he vetoed the National Popular Vote plan last year, he said the plan, by conceivably awarding California’s electoral college votes to a candidate who didn’t win in California, would violate the people’s will.
Yet, in his recent vetoes of the IRV bill, and the bill to count write-in votes when the voter forgets to “X” the box, he is revealing that he doesn’t really care about the popular will at all.