California law says absentee ballots must arrive in the hands of election officials by closing hour on election day, or they can’t be counted. This story shows that at least 12,563 Riverside County absentee ballots won’t be counted, because they were not put into the hands of election officials until the day after the election.
The post office and elections officials generally depend on election officials visiting post offices and picking up ballots on election day. But the 12,563 ballots in the Moreno Valley postal processing center were not picked up on election day. Election officials say they expected the ballots to be in the Riverside post office, and thus didn’t visit the Moreno Valley post office on election day.
Before 1961, California absentee ballots were valid if they had been postmarked by election day. But in the 1960 presidential election, votes counted by the day after the election showed John F. Kennedy carrying California in the presidential election. It took several weeks for the 1960 absentee ballots to be counted, and when they had been counted, it turned out Richard Nixon had carried California. Democrats in the state legislature were so upset by this unexpected reversal that they changed the law, to provide that only absentee ballots in the hands of election officials by election day would be valid.
This article says that county officials expected them to be in Redlands (which is just across the county line in San Bernadino County). The post office says they switched to Moreno Valley after the November 2008 election, and that county election officials had picked them up in subsequent elections at Moreno Valley.
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/swcounty/article_3ca41dab-8226-546e-993c-331ee2abefc0.html
The number is very significant and could have changed the outcome of some elections 🙁
That could put the race between Nightingale and Robinson
in dispute. Look at the numbers. Since after the Canvass on July 6, 2010, Prop. 14 will go into effect on
Midnight on Wednesday June 9, 2010.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Vice Chairman, American Independent Party.
ALL election stuff is YES/NO.
MUCH election stuff is checklist stuff – do or not do something at a time and place.
i.e. how many New Age MORONS in the *system* — BOTH the election bureaucrats and the postal snails ???
Elections Code Section 3000: ” This division shall be liberally construed in favor of the vote by mail voter.”
Elections code 3017 sets the 8pm deadline. It includes Subsection (d): “The provisions of this section are mandatory, not directory, and no ballot shall be counted if it is not delivered in compliance with this section.”
The lawyers and judges could have a field day figure out which language is controlling. Personally, I’m betting on Section 3000.
#3 But it won’t become operative until January 1, 2011.
I wonder why the political parties have not filed suit yet.
Seidenberg, when are you going to grow up? At today’s count by the SOS office, in Riverside County, Nightingale had 804 votes (58%) to 578 votes for Robinson (41%) of the vote. This is about the same percentage as Nightingale won statewide.
Do you think intelligent people who read your “refuse to accept reality” comments, honestly beleive that Robinson is going to win almost 6,000 votes in Riverside County (if those ballot are counted) and change the results? Give us all a break!
#6, why do you think political parties are the ones to file a lawsuit against Prop. 14? Prop. 14 injures voters and candidates; maybe voters and candidates will file the first lawsuits against Prop. 14.
What writer #3 IS ADDRESSING REMEMBER “DEWEY WINS?” ALSO, he is very shrewed if there “could” be any questions.. would make a “case.” (any good lawyer would agree)
preponderence of evidence
Those voters should sue the election officials for disenfranchising them. Also they should sue to have their votes counted since they complied.
I highly doubt all, or most of the 12,563 ballots are AIP.
It’s probably not going to change jack sh*t.
14th Amdt, Sec. 2 again shows up.
denied, abridged
#8 How does it injure voters? How does it injure candidates?
Who sued in California Democratic Party v Jones? Who sued in Washington State. Why would any ordinary decent citizen sue the State of California?
What part of the U.S.A. Constitution is allegedly violated by having a *voter-nominated* primary – i.e. the Prop. 14 CA primary ???
Repeat — ALL voters will be doing the nominations — NOT the usual suspects in the special interest Donkey/Elephant gangs.
Prop. 14 injures candidates because it limits our choices in federal-law-mandated congressional election day. I am a voter and I want to vote for someone in November who agrees with my stands on the issues. November of even-numbered years is the time in which the whole nation votes for US House of Representatives. Our votes represent what direction we want our government to take. How can I express myself if there are only two candidates, neither of whom represent my thinking, and I can’t even cast a write-in vote that will be counted?
Richard:
I have mixed feeling about this Proposition 14, because philosophically, I believe the voters – not the parties and their hacks – should decide who the nominees for public office will be.
George Washington strongly warned against “factionalism” and political parties over some 200 years ago. Washington, who only believed white men were qualified to vote, still believed men – not party bosses – should decide who will govern us. It is the “partisan political system” which has for the most part destroyed this nation -not the voters.
I understand your desire to have a choice on the federal law-mandated congressional election day. So why not work (if Proposition 14 is not overturned) to move the “Top Two” system from June to the “November-December” time-frame like Louisiana has.
This would be the best of both worlds. Voters like you, who feel they are voting for the candidate of their choice ONLY when such is held in a General Election in November, would have that choice, but for those (like me) who feel the voters,i.e. the people, should decide who will be the nominees,(and the office holders) we too would have that choice.
Wouldn’t that be fair?
#16 The limitation on write-ins in the general election has nothing to do with a Top 2 Open Primary. Surely you aren’t going to make an argument that Washington’s Top 2 Scheme is constitutional and California’s is not.
The write-in provision in SB 6 is literally nonsensical. The two most plausible conjectures about what it means are: (a) if a declared write-in candidate receives the most votes, he is not elected; or (b) even if a write-in candidate has properly and timely filed to have write-in votes for him counted, they can not be counted.
Other sections of the Election Code state:
(1) Voters have a right to cast a write-in vote in all elections.
(2) Election officials are required to provide a space for write-in votes on ballots.
(3) Candidates have a right to run as a write-in candidate. The counting of their votes is conditional on them filing certain paper work.
(4) There is a procedure which candidates may comply with that applies to all elections, including general elections voter-nominated offices.
(5) The Secretary of State is required to disseminate to county election officials candidates who have properly filed to have write-in votes counted.
(1) A voter’s right to cast a write-in vote is violated if there are NO circumstances under which that vote can be counted.
(2) A candidate’s right to campaign as a write-in candidate is violated if there are NO circumstances under which an otherwise qualified candidate may be elected.
(3) It is fraudulent for California to include directions on a ballot that might induce a voter to vote in a manner that under NO circumstances may be counted.
(4) It is contrary to the Constitution to not elect the otherwise qualified candidate who receives the most vote. There is no way to interpret “to choose” or “to elect” to mean a selection of a candidate with fewer votes.
So either a court strikes down the write-in section, which is totally severable; or the legislature removes it and inserts a sore-loser prohibition similar to that in Washington.
The voters of your congressional district will be making the final choice as to their representative on the election day set by Congress. It is word play and sophistry to suggest that it is constitutional to eliminate Tom Campbell in June using a partisan-primary system and not-constitutional to eliminate Tom Campbell in June using a Top 2 Open Primary system.
And in any case, your concern may be addressed by moving the open primary to November, which preserves the right of any voter to vote for any candidate.
14th Amdt, Sec. 2 — gone over word by word about 100 times in 1866 in the 39th Congress —
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, [[is denied]] to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, [[or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime,]] the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
How many write-in votes in 1776-1866 ???
Sorry — seems still OK to deny/abridge the right to vote for females and have no loss of U.S.A. Reps or Electoral College votes.
I.E. the Congress MORONS did not change 14th Amdt, Sec. 2 when proposing the 19th Amdt.
The time is long over when any state can hold one election in November and a run-off in December. This year Congress told the states they must mail absentee overseas ballots no later than 45 days before the election. States could use IRV, of course.
Louisiana uses contingent ballots for its overseas absentee voters. When you have party primaries it makes it extremely messy because a voter might be able to vote in a party primary, party runoff, and general election; a party primary and general election; the general election only; or no election at all; depending on their party affiliation and the candidates that file for office.
If only one candidate qualifies for an election the election is cancelled. If there is one candidate, he is automatically elected. If there are two candidates, and they are from different parties, then they simply advance to the general election directly. If there are two candidates, and they are from the same party, then the winner of the primary is elected, and there is no runoff or general election.
In 2008, the Louisiana SOS office had to produce a chart for each congressional district and voter party affiliation, explaining which ballots were to be sent to overseas voters. The contingent elections were done as write-in, since it would be too complicated to explain the potential candidates in each round.
But if you have an open primary, overseas absentee voters can simply be given a second ballot for the runoff with all candidate names listed, which they may rank if they do. When the ballot is received, you simply set the contingent ballot aside, and only use it, if a second ballot is not received in time.
Of course the proper resolution is for the US Government to operating polling centers overseas, at military bases, embassies, and consulates. Then local election official could route electronic ballots through state election officals, who would forward them on to federal election officials, who would forward them overseas. The overseas election officials could return a voter count electronically, and the paper ballots within, perhaps, a week. In any case, election official would no how many ballots were yet to be received.
How many troops on the front lines in Asia fighting the ANTI-Democracy BARBARIANS (and elsewhere) will NOT get ballots and/or have such ballots counted on time ???
P.R. and App.V. — ONE election [NO primaries, NO runoffs] — ONE ballot — way too difficult for the armies of party hack EVIL MORONS in the States to understand.
So have these ballots been counted yet?
Well, Riverside County just got updated today, so they counted them.
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/status.htm
And the marginal % between Nightingale and Robinson hasn’t really changed at all.
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/gov/59.htm
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