Certified list of candidates for June ballot now online

The Secretary of State recently published the final, certified list of candidates for state and federal offices that will appear on California's June 2010 Primary election ballot. Open seat contests for statewide offices such as Governor have attracted a large number of candidates from all parties. The 177-page PDF-format list features candidate contact information and web sites.

Controversy over Prop. 14 ballot language

Today's Los Angeles Times features this column by George Skelton outlining the controversy over the ballot title and summary for Proposition 14, a measure on the June 2010 that, if passed, would create an open primary process for California elections. Excerpts from Skelton's column are below.

The fate of an open primary proposal on the June ballot may well hinge on the outcome of a bitter court fight this week over a dozen or so words.

The words will be seen by millions of voters -- everyone who casts a ballot in the June 8 primary. They will summarize what Proposition 14 is all about and undoubtedly influence more votes than any endorsement or mail piece.

It's language that will be used in the "ballot label" printed right on the ballot, and the "title and summary" included in the secretary of state's official voter guide mailed to households.

"If we win the case, we win the election," says David Townsend, a strategist for the Prop. 14 side. "If they get their language, we lose the election."

At issue is whether the proposed open primary amounts to "reform" or merely "change." The current ballot language states the former; opponents contend the latter. Also, would Prop. 14 really lead to "greater participation in elections," as the language claims? Not necessarily, opponents argue.

There are other disputes: Opponents want to point out that candidates would not be required to list their political party. They could list it voluntarily. Also, the anti-14 side wants the summary to state that the measure eliminates the guaranteed rights of political parties -- and write-in and independent candidates -- to be on the general election ballot.

And they dispute the nonpartisan legislative analyst's finding that an open primary system would result in "no significant" increase in government costs. It could raise costs by "between $10 million and $20 million," they say, and insist the summary should point that out.

Accusations are flying all around the Capitol, mainly from Prop. 14 backers, who claim they were blindsided when a labor union, the California School Employees Assn., filed a suit against the Legislature without notifying them.

Most legislators -- both parties -- strongly oppose an open primary system. But they placed Prop. 14 on the ballot as part of a late-night deal last year to buy the budget-and-tax vote of Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria).

Now proponents suspect that the union and legislative leaders conspired to change the ballot language in the opponents' favor by attempting an out-of-court settlement -- a sort of bait-and-switch on Maldonado.

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But let's back up: Prop. 14 would create a "top-two" open primary. There would no longer be party nominating elections, except for president.

There would be one primary ballot, open to all candidates and voters. The top two vote-getters, regardless of party, would advance to the general election. In a heavily Democratic district, it's possible that two Democrats could face each other in the runoff. Ditto for two Republicans in a GOP district.

The goal is to force candidates in primaries to appeal to a wider range of voters than merely their own party members -- and elect some pragmatic moderates who can crack Sacramento's partisan gridlock.

Because the Legislature produced Prop. 14, it was allowed to write the ballot label and title and summary. When a ballot measure originates as a voters' initiative, the attorney general composes the language.

The legislative counsel wrote the Prop. 14 language with aides to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who strongly supports an open primary.

Testimony from SoS hearing on the Future of Voting in California

On Monday I attended a hearing sponsored by the Secretary of State to examine the future of voting in California. The hearing was well-attended, although there were some notable absences, including Secretary of State Debra Bowen herself, who was held up in Washington, DC due to weather.

I know many folks were watching the hearing online via the Secretary of State's web site and a few even stuck around until the bitter end when I delivered my testimony in the "Public Comments" portion of the agenda around 5:15 p.m. I believe there may be a video archive of the hearing available at a later time. Staff did inform the audience yesterday that there would be transcript and that public comments will be posted on the Secretary of State's web site.

My remarks are available here.

What do you envision as the future of voting in California? The Secretary of State is still accepting public comments, which can be sent via email to votingsystems@sos.ca.gov.

Secretary of State hearing Monday - Future of Voting in California

On Monday, February 8th California Secretary of State Debra Bowen will hold an informational hearing, on the topic of "The Future of Voting in California: the People, the Equipment, the Costs". The Secretary of State has arranged for speakers from across the country to come to Sacramento for this event (see the agenda for a complete lineup of speakers).

In her media advisory announcing the hearing, Secretary Bowen had this to say:

“Demands for increased transparency and services, shrinking government budgets, and technological advances that outpace elections laws and regulations have combined to challenge what many thought were ‘permanent’ solutions developed as part of the 2002 Help America Vote Act,” said Secretary Bowen, California’s chief elections officer. “Many in California and across the nation are ready to move in a new direction. The question is, what should Californians seek in the next generation of voting equipment and how can new products truly serve the interests of voters?”

The hearing begins at 10 a.m. in the Secretary of State's auditorium in downtown Sacramento, at 1500 11th Street, first floor. For those who cannot attend in person, there will be a live webcast available online.

Application deadline for Citizens Redistricting Commission is Feb. 12

California's first-ever Citizens Redistricting Commission will be created by the end of this year. According to the Bureau of State Audits, which is responsible for managing the commission selection process, the Bureau has received over 15,000 eligible applications from Californians to serve on the commission! The response is overwhelming and inspiring. I had thought maybe a few hundred people would apply -- I never imagined it would be more than 15,000! This tremendous groundswell of interest shows that many Californians care deeply about the quality of representative democracy in our state.

The Bureau has been compiling statistics showing who is applying by gender, party, ethnicity and geographic location -- they can be found online here. The deadline to apply is February 12. Visit www.wedrawthelines.ca.gov for additional details and to access the application process. The Dec. 18 edition of CVF-NEWS also provides additional information about what will be expected of applicants and those who are selected to serve on the new commission.

This morning on Capitol Public Radio's "Insight" show - using iPhones to sign initiative petitions

Can you use your iPhone to sign an initiative petition? A northern California-based company, Verafirma, has developed an application that makes it possible. But is it legal? Is it secure? These are the questions that remain unanswered. Election officials will need to start figuring it out soon, though, because the proponents of an initiative seeking to legalize marijuana use in California have submitted their petitions for verification, and the batch includes a smattering of signatures submitted not on piece of paper, but on thumb drives that display the initiative petition along with an image of a voter's signature captured when the voter wrote that signature on his or her iPhone screen using the Verafirma app.

And it's not just an image of a signature - it's something called "signature dynamic" that captures the pressure, speed and other special characteristics of the signature-in-the-making. This data can also be used for verification purposes - however, I do not believe the 58 county registrar offices have that technology in-house at this time. The counties that received these thumb drives have to either accept or reject the signatures on them. If they are rejected then there will likely be a legal battle and/or a legislative effort to change the law.

The advantages of collecting initiative signatures using iPhones or other kinds of personal digital assistants (PDAs) are substantial, especially if you have an initiative that is likely to attract grassroots support. Using PDAs to sign initiatives will allow for more successful viral marketing campaigns and can lower the cost for qualifying an initiative, which experts estimate is a minimum of $1 million, even for the most grass-rootsy of measures.

The technology may also lend itself to voter registration, which is currently an all-paper affair in California. Although the Secretary of State is aiming to create an online voter registration process, it is not likely to be up and running for several more years. From an election officials' point of view, it will likely be far easier to verify petitions or registration forms that come in a digital format because the information on them is more accurate and easier to read, and it will also greatly reduce the number of paper petitions that get submitted, thus saving paper.

The downside? From a voter's perspective, it may make initiatives easier to qualify so we may end up with even more measures on the ballot, which can overwhelm voters. There are also potential security and privacy risks that must be addressed. How does the voter know that a company collecting their information and signature image isn't storing it somewhere to use later for commercial or fraud purposes? How do you know the initiative you are signing is the actual one you want to sign and not an imposter petition? These kinds of questions typically get worked out during legislative and regulatory proceedings. But in this case, as in so many other instances in the past 16 years*, public policy has not kept pace with technology.

And we know from experience where that can lead. Remember electronic voting? It was so appealing to the registrars -- no more paper ballots, a fast, accurate count. The problem was there was no transparency or accountability either. California spent hundreds of millions of dollars on 40,000 paperless, electronic voting machines that ended up later being replaced with paper-voting systems or retrofitted with printers to produce a paper trail. We learned an expensive lesson -- paper is low-tech and perhaps not what's best for the environment, but in an election process marked by a tangle of procedures and varying degrees of technical sophistication in county election offices and at polling places, paper is the safest, most transparent method for transacting ballots.

Of course, voter registration forms and initiative petitions are not the same as ballots. While they are in the same "class" of transactions, they are fundamentally different; a ballot is secret, and your name is not allowed to be on your ballot. Once you cast a ballot it must be anonymized, mixed with other ballots and never tied back to you. These rules are what keep the ballot secret. But initiative petitions and voter registration records are public records, and election officials must know the names and addresses of people who sign and submit them. Signatures must be visible and verifiable. Consequently, I am cautiously optimistic about the prospects for the iPhone initiative petition application. But first, election officials will need to figure out how to protect the security of these transactions and the privacy of the information contained in them.

For more on this topic, tune in to the Capitol Public Radio's Insight show today, hosted by Jeffrey Callison, where I will be a guest along with Sacramento county Registrar of Voters Jill Lavine and Steve Churchwell, counsel for Verafirma. The show starts at 10 a.m. at 90.9 FM in Sacramento or online at www.capradio.org.

For additional details, take a look at this article by Ken McLaughlin from earlier this month in the San Jose Mercury News.

* Incidentally, I mention "the past sixteen years" above because it marks the time when I took up my role as the head of the California Voter Foundation, and today happens to be my sixteen year anniversary on the job. It has been a phenomenal experience watching, and participating in the changes technology has brought to the democratic process! I look forward to the challenges ahead.

A new initiative aims to derail redistricting reform

George Skelton wrote an insightful column for the Los Angeles Times this week discussing some of the formidable hurdles Proposition 11, the redistricting reform initiative, must overcome before the initiative's results are achieved. His column is online and excerpts are below.

Remember redistricting reform, the effort to strip from legislators the power to choose their own voters?

It's the power that leads to gerrymandering or, in effect, lawmakers rigging their own elections.

Proposition 11, sponsored by a coalition of nonpartisan good-government groups and heavily funded by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, passed by a thin margin (1.8%) in November 2008. It called for creation of a 14-member independent citizens commission to draw districts for the Legislature and state Board of Equalization.

The next once-a-decade remapping will occur in 2011, and take effect with the 2012 election.

Here's an update: Things aren't going all that smoothly.

Two problems:

* Not enough women and minorities are applying for seats on the commission, officials report. The panel's pool of applicants is heavily tilted toward old white guys. There's a concerted effort underway to recruit a more diverse pool by the application deadline, Feb. 12.

* It all could be moot anyway. A small group of Democratic political insiders is trying to repeal Prop. 11 and also torpedo a sequel that would extend the redistricting reform to congressional seats. They've filed an initiative for the November ballot.

The odds are that Prop. 11 will survive. The repeal effort is blatantly cynical, and Californians probably will see through the bunkum. But this election year is unpredictable.

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At last count a week ago, about 6,000 people had applied. But 73% were male, and 52% were 55 or older. Whites represented 80% and Latinos only 8%. A mere 14% were from Los Angeles County, but 20% -- not surprisingly -- lived in the capital county of Sacramento.

Still, it should all work out. There'll be a large enough pool of women and minorities to seat a diverse commission representative of the state's demographics.

A bigger threat to reform is an initiative conceived by Michael Berman, a longtime Democratic strategist, redistricting guru and brother of U.S. Rep. Howard Berman of Van Nuys. The Bermans' goal is to kill an initiative that would also hand congressional redistricting to the independent commission.

The Berman proposal would commit a double execution by simultaneously burying Prop. 11. All redistricting would be returned to the Democratic-dominated Legislature.

But that's not how the so-called "findings and purpose" of the Berman initiative read. Titled "the 'Financial Accountability in Redistricting Act' or 'FAIR,' " the measure begins: "Our political leadership has failed us. California is facing an unprecedented economic crisis and we, the people (not the politicians), need to prioritize how we spend our limited funds. We are going broke. . . . "

And so forth with paragraph after paragraph of pot and kettle bilge. Based on Sacramento history, the independent commission won't spend any more money on redistricting than the Legislature has, and its meetings will be open, unlike the lawmakers' plotting behind locked doors.

"I'd be embarrassed to write that, and I'm a hack," says Rick Claussen, campaign consultant for the congressional redistricting reform. That initiative is being funded so far by wealthy Silicon Valley physicist and political activist Charles Munger Jr., a bankroller of Prop. 11. Half the necessary voter signatures have been collected to place the measure on the November ballot.

"I'm trying to uproot this evil" of gerrymandering, Munger says. "It's a national problem, but this is my state so I'm starting here. Whenever the politicians get into the game of selecting the voters, instead of the voters being free to select the politicians, that's bad for democracy."

The Berman measure, which hasn't yet been cleared for signature-gathering, actually was officially submitted by UCLA law professor Daniel Lowenstein. He is an election law expert, first chairman of the state Fair Political Practices Commission and a Berman chum. For decades Lowenstein has opposed independent redistricting and is straight up about it.

"I believe that in almost all respects, redistricting is a political matter," he says. "There's one institution set up especially for resolving political matters and it does so entirely legitimately. And that's the state Legislature."

As for the majority party gerrymandering to minimize campaign competition, he says: "It's a complicated process of self interest, group interest and public interest. . . . A fair redistricting plan is whatever emerges from the political process of compromise and competition."

"If the other party doesn't like it, they should win the next election."

One hazard for reformers is that voters could become confused and vote against both measures. That would be fine with the Berman group. They'd at least prevent pesky citizens from drawing congressional districts.

A fresh perspective on reforming California government

These days everyone is talking about reform, many initiatives are in circulation and voters are likely to face various, and possibly competing approaches on the November 2010 ballot. One of the freshest perspectives I have heard recently came from Susan Rose, a former member of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors whose essay, "State Government Badly in Need of Reform", appeared in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle. An excerpt is below:

Is it possible to reshape the way California is governed?

At a time of continuing unhappiness with the governor and Legislature, several groups have issued proposals that would redesign the financial structure of the state. But now is the time to not only rethink the fiscal systems of California but to redesign how services are delivered.

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Here are areas that need to be considered in the reform movement and in any debate about governing the state:

Special districts

Special districts are a holy grail in California communities, but are they still needed? Many began when and where services did not exist. Today, according to Peter Detwiler, staff director of the state Senate's Local Government Committee, California has about 3,400 special districts. Many counties have multiple water, sewer, fire and transportation districts. Why not consolidate or annex them to local municipalities? The administrative savings alone would be worth millions to taxpayers, and more-efficient services would result.

Regional government

Counties have been the real losers in this last budget go-round. They perform many of the same services that cities provide and also those that are mandated by the state: public and mental health, social services, tax collection, courts and probation.

Why not create regional forms of government that would reduce duplication? Counties can provide services that cover larger geographical areas, and cities can serve the day-to-day needs of their communities such as land-use planning, public works, building safety, parks and recreation, and police.

If cities are too small to provide their own police departments, they can contract with neighboring communities; it is done frequently throughout the state. Counties can contract with nearby cities to provide day-to-day municipal services for their own rural areas. The elimination of some of these functions would result in huge savings to local governments and more streamlined delivery of services.

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Consolidating services

California has 58 counties. Each presents a laboratory of opportunities for reshaping government. Santa Barbara County has a population of 405,000 and 10 fire protection agencies. Services are provided by some of the cities, the county, special districts, and state and federal programs that include firefighting. In some areas, training and communication systems have already been combined. Small communities can be very protective of their fire departments, but a single consolidated fire service program could provide greater resources and increased service levels. Why not unify all county fire programs into one area-wide agency?

What I especially like about Ms. Rose's suggestions is that not only would streamlining and reorganization of government services likely result in the provision of better services, it also would improve government accountability. Right now just about every level of government in California is involved in just about every kind of government service. This overlapping of jurisdictions makes it difficult, if not impossible for voters to know who to go to when they need help or have a complaint or question. Streamlining government services would make it easier for the public to know which political leaders are responsible for delivering those services and rewarding or punishing them according to performance.