August 11, 2003
RECALL POWERBALL!....It's time for the lottery! That is, the
recall lottery, where we pull letters out of a basket to find out the
order of the candidates on the recall ballot. Since being 100th out of
195 could be a serious problem, this is no small thing.
And here we go: R....W....
Complete results later!
UPDATE: H, B, and S are all grouped together in the middle of the
ballot, so that takes care of Huffington, Bustamante, Schwarzenegger,
and Simon. They'll all appear in roughly the same spot on page 7....
Posted by Kevin Drum at August 11, 2003 11:48 AM
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I thought the lottery wasnt terribly important because the starting point will be rotated from county to county.
7-page ballot? Well, at least we're used to that, especially here in
San Francisco. But we can all look forward to the phonebook-sized
voters' guide that will doubtless be coming out in a few weeks. I'm
sure no one will give up when they see the size of that thing.
I think I'll move to Australia.
(I'm not serious--the above is a quote from the famed kids-book philospher Alexander.)
Excellent. So, who wins your recent contest to guess the correct number of candidates on the ballot?
Note that while the order is the same everywhere, which letter goes
*first* is rotated by assembly district. The drawing sets the order for
everyone and the first-letter for assembly district 1; assembly district
2 takes the same order but starts with the letter that was second in
the drawing (the previous first letter becomes the last letter), and so
on.
Also, this is standard operating procedure for all statewide
elections. It just might matter more in this one than it usually does.
James: gotta wait for the final official results. We still don't have them.
Aphrael: is that right? I heard a different story about how things
are randomized today. CNN (or Fox, I forget) said that the basic order
would be the same everywhere, but that the order within each letter
might be different.
So, it might Adams and then Atkins in LA, but Atkins and then Adams in San Francisco.
Clear as mud, no? I guess we'll get the straight story eventually.
In the meantime, it's off to lunch for me.
the rotation is based on Assembly districts, click my name for the link
"And here we go: R....W...."
For a minute, there, I thought this was Ricky West annoncing his candidacy . . .
Aah, but don't forget - the order rotates from district-to-district,
so that somewhere in California every letter gets to be first.
RE: San Franciscans being used to "long" ballots:
The optical machines are going to hate you for inserting all those
unmarked pages. Or should you only insert ballot pages that have marks?
I hate to get ahead of things, but just to anticipate the next step
in the electoral circus CA has become, what are the machinations for a
recount if two, or more, candidates end up very close?
Squiddy:
The optical machines are going to hate you for inserting all those
unmarked pages. Or should you only insert ballot pages that have marks?
I seem to remember you had to insert them all for the last general
election (there were a lot of initiative pages). The machines coughed
only every 4th page or so, which was a marked improvement over the
initial use of opticals. This ought to be hilarious...
Kevin - Elections Code Division 8 Section 8122 specifies:
The Secretary of State shall certify and transmit the list of candidates
for nomination to each office according to Assembly districts, in the
order of arrangement prescribed in Chapter 2 (commencing with Section
13100) of Division 13. In the case of each county containing more than
one Assembly district, the Secretary of State shall transmit separate
lists for each Assembly district.
Elections Code Division 13 Section 13113 specifies:
In the case of all other offices*, the candidates for which are to be
voted on throughout the state, the Secretary of State shall arrange the
names of the candidates for the office in accordance with the randomized
alphabet as provided for in Section 13112 for the First Assembly
District. Thereafter, for each succeeding Assembly district, the name
appearing first in the last preceding Assembly district shall be placed
last, the order of the other names remaining unchanged.
So i'm wrong; the rotation is based on the *candidate* not the *letter*. Which means some candidates will never get to the top.
*besides President and Vice-President, handled in the preceding paragraph.
Why isn't sup supported by MT's comment code?
W means Nathaniel Walton, Bill Walton's son.
Cool.
"Names of candidates for offices voted on statewide rotate by
Assembly district, starting with Assembly District 1 where the names
appear as first determined by the random alphabet. In Assembly District
2, the candidate who appeared first in Assembly District 1 drops to the
bottom and the other candidates move up one position and so on
throughout the 80 districts."
- http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/statewide_special_random_alpha.htm
Does anyone know if any worse method of choosing a leader has ever been used anywhere, any time? I'm serious.
I remember that in Ethiopia under the Derge the major figures all
took their pistols to the meeting where the leader was to be chosen, and
the last man standing became president. But to me that seems like a better method.
"Does anyone know if any worse method of choosing a leader has ever been used anywhere, any time? I'm serious"
Well, we could sacrifice small animals to the gods, then examine
their entrails . . . on second thought, however, that would make
California jsut another snake cult . . . :)
Democracy in action.
The best part of this is that Davis really is bad news. And, the guy
who thought he'd benefit, by spending millions of his own money, got a
car alarm to go off in his head. And, he walked out of the casino,
Assa, did.
It can only get better!
LARGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE WILL GO OUT AND VOTE. What may also happen is
that the polls get FLOODED with people. Who demand ballots. And, since
this is anticipated to be a 'small turnout election' we may make Florida
look like a day in the park.
I'm ready.
So let me see if I've got this right. We're going to have a ballot with somewhere around 200 candidates -- and they're not
going to be listed in alphabetical order. So every single voter is
going to have to stand there and scan through the entire multi-page
monstrosity to find the name of the candidate he or she wants to vote
for. Unless there's an alphabetized index provided with the ballot --
but that's probably illegal for the same reason the names are randomized
in the first place.
Uffda gevalt!
I wonder if it's going to take as long to count the votes as it's taking to count the candidates.
Keith, possibly. The LA Times had an article on this yesterday; I blogged about it here.
>So every single voter is going to have to stand
>there and scan through the entire multi-page
>monstrosity to find the name of the candidate he
>or she wants to vote for.
Good. Maybe it means that only people who are motivated by one or
another candidate will vote, and the "party liners" on both sides will
be discouraged. Now if we can just get rid of the one-stop "party line"
voting option in regular elections, people might actually do some
research on the morons they are voting for.
(Start self-mocking)
Better yet, use only write-in (or type-in) votes. People who walk into
the booth not knowing who the candidates are shouldn't vote.
And yes, "Arnold Shwartzinager" and "Cruise Bustymonty" are hanging
chads - throw 'em out. Airy Anna Huffington? Toss it. Arnold Drummond?
Not a candidate. Dang it, this may be the only way Bill Simon has a
chance of winning!
(end self mocking)
Keith Thompson:
"So every single voter is going to have to stand there and scan through
the entire multi-page monstrosity to find the name of the candidate he
or she wants to vote for."
Presumably the major candidates, newspapers, and of course the
Secretary of State's website will have cheatsheets telling you that in
your Assembly district Arnold is #145 or whatever. When you get your
ballot just flip to that, check, and punch.
Presumably the major candidates, newspapers, and of course the
Secretary of State's website will have cheatsheets telling you that in
your Assembly district Arnold is #145 or whatever. When you get your
ballot just flip to that, check, and punch.
Sure, or just check the sample ballot before you go to the polling place; that's what I intend to do.
But I'll have to wait in line behind all the people who didn't bother.
Good. Maybe it means that only people who are motivated by one or
another candidate will vote, and the "party liners" on both sides will
be discouraged. Now if we can just get rid of the one- stop "party line"
voting option in regular elections, people might actually do some
research on the morons they are voting for.
I've never seen a one-stop party line option on any ballot I've ever
used; if I blindly vote the party line, I have to do it one candidate at
a time. Do any California jurisdictions have such an option? My vague
impression is that that kind of option is provided on old-style voting
machines; I don't think California even uses them.
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