MetaFilter posts tagged with California and voting

Also, make sure to bring a number two pencil

Rhaomi — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:26:22 -0800

Something is rotten in the state of ~~Denmark~~ California. The California-based Courage Campaign is making noises about voter disenfranchisement in the Los Angeles area. For the 776,774 ~~independent~~ "Decline To State" voters in the primary there, casting a ballot for a Democratic nominee is a bit more difficult than you'd think would be necessary (the Republican primary is (un?)fortunately closed to independents). These "DTS" voters must request a Democratic Party ballot (as opposed to a generic nonpartisan one without a section for the Presidency), and then (somewhat redundantly) fill a bubble at the top of that ballot reiterating their intent to participate in the Democratic primary. Sounds simple enough. But the average voter has been confounded by less than simple procedures before. In spite of the potential for confusion, the local board of registrars has made the brilliant decision to have the scanning machines invalidate all ballots that do not have that extra bubble filled in -- without informing the voter of the mistake. Furthermore, poll workers will not be required to inform DTS voters of their right to a Democratic ticket unless asked, a policy which State Senator Dean Florez said "violates the spirit of the law" in a stern letter (scroll down to read) to California Secretary of State Debra Bowen. While the issue at first glance seems purely local, the effects of any disenfranchisement will have great influence on Tuesday's results. It is common knowledge that independents are drawn to Barack Obama's campaign, and with them locked out of supporting John McCain in the state's closed GOP primary, he was counting on their turnout to help top Hillary Clinton's erstwhile formidable lead. With the ballot issue threatening that support, the campaign was quick to explain the problem. And for good reason -- the three quarters of a million DTS voters in Los Angeles amount to three-fourths of the votes cast in the all the Democratic primaries to date. Their influence can easily sway California, which itself will sway the media narrative coming out of Super Tuesday. For its part, the aforementioned Courage Campaign is hard at work spreading awareness with websites, (minor) celebrity radio ads, and cheesy YouTube skits. Here's hoping their efforts pay off, and that we can finally get through an election -- even one as crucial as SupercalifragalisticexpialaTuesday -- without an intractable struggle for recounts and justice.

Mo' money, mo' legislation

djgh — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 10:19:20 -0800

Is there a link between donations given and bills passed? MAPLight.org aims to help you find out, giving you the ability to compare contributions with how legislators voted. [Via]

That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage!

jacobian — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 11:08:16 -0800

California Restricts Voting Machines: after a source code review of voting machines turned up "significant, deeply-rooted security weaknesses" in voting machines by Diebold, Hart, and Sequoia, the California Secretary of State decertified all three vendors' systems. These weaknesses have been well covered here at MeFi, but some are bad enough to shock even the well-jaded, including the revelation that Diebold "uses at least two hard-coded passwords -- one is 'diebold' and another is the eight-byte sequence 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8." Time to think about open voting?

California Recall

thedailygrowl — Mon, 15 Sep 2003 10:42:58 -0800

9th Circuit Court blocks California Recall Election because six counties would be using outdated punch-card ballots. Perhaps the court should have paid a visit to the Black Box Voting web site to look at all the problems surfacing with the Electronic Voting machines.

mathowie — Tue, 07 Mar 2000 11:04:55 -0800

I hope all the Californians that are reading this today have voted. There's a great site at CalVoter.org that features a page listing all the top financial backers of the propositions. There are some curious contributors in there, like why are oil companies and public utilities behind the "try gang kids as adults and put them in real prisions" prop? There's a few dot com millionaires on the No on 22 campaign, and obviously a lot of tobacco companies want to see the cigarette tax repealed.

MetaFilter posts tagged with California and voting

Also, make sure to bring a number two pencil

Mo' money, mo' legislation

That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage!

More Diebold problems.

California Recall