Category: ballot access

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ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

Holding All the Trumps

Idaho, initiative, ballot, Senate Bill 1159, democracy, voting,

Last week, Idaho’s Senate Bill 1159 — “the bill to make it much harder to qualify a voter initiative or referendum for the Idaho ballot,” as the Idaho Press summarized it — passed the Senate on the narrowest 18 – 17 vote.

Now headed to the House, the legislation would 

  • nearly double the number of voter-​signed petitions to place an initiative onto the ballot
  • reduce the time to gather those signatures by a whopping two-thirds 
  • throw up numerous additional hurdles

What’s the point?

The state already has one of the most arduous petition processes in the nation for qualifying a citizen initiative for the ballot. Moreover, without passing any new law, Idaho legislators currently have and have always had a 100 percent veto on any citizen-​initiated measure enacted by voters. 

Idahoans cannot place constitutional amendments on the ballot through their citizen initiative, only statutes. And any statute voters pass can then immediately be repealed by a simple majority of legislators. Or amended any which way those solons so desire.

So, again, why the need for politicians to pull up the ladders? 

Senate Republicans claim — in a news release headlined, “Setting the record straight on initiative bill” — to be “concerned about the integrity, transparency and fairness of the initiative process.”

What does heightening all the hurdles to trip up citizens have to do with integrity, transparency or fairness?*

Voting on an issue is “unfair” to whom … legislators?

Holding all the trump cards, Idaho senators still didn’t want the people to have a say. The politicians are scared to death of democracy. 

Which is why we need more, not less. 

Certainly not none.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* I do acknowledge that the bill is transparently awful.

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Idaho, initiative, ballot, Senate Bill 1159, democracy, voting,

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ballot access insider corruption local leaders

Clown Car of Felonies

Michael Madigan, Speaker, House, Illinois, corruption, machine

“It’s overkill of epic proportions,” John Kass writes in the Chicago Tribune, “like using a sledgehammer to kill a gnat, or firing off a nuclear weapon to kill a sparrow.”

In three columns, Kass tells the story of David Krupa, a 19-​year-​old DePaul University student, who gathered over 1,700 voter signatures on petitions to gain a spot on the ballot for alderman of Chicago’s notorious 13th Ward.

Why notorious? It’s Boss Madigan’s home.

Yes, the “Land of Lincoln,” home to nearly 13 million people, is ruled by one man, Michael J. Madigan, Speaker of the Illinois House, “the longest-​serving leader of any state or federal legislative body in the history of the United States.” 

And 13th Ward Alderman Marty Quinn, the incumbent, is Madigan’s guy.

Quickly, a lawsuit was filed challenging Krupa’s petitions and, as Kass explains, “A crew of mysterious political workers — perhaps they were Buddhist monks, or the gentle sun people known as the Eloi, or maybe Madigan precinct captains — filed 2,796 petitions of revocation of signature.”

While almost three thousand people executed affidavits stating that they wanted their signatures removed from Krupa’s petition, only 187 actually signed his petition.

Since the revocations require swearing to a legal document, under penalty of perjury, and perjury is a felony, more than 2,500 people — and their knowing helpers — appear to have committed what Krupa’s attorney calls a “clown car of felonies.”

Then — voilà! — the legal challenge evaporated. Young Krupa won’t be squashed; there will be a challenger on the 13th Ward ballot for the first time in decades. 

Is that enough? No. 

Election process corruption and the possible suborning of thousands of felonies must be investigated. 

No quarter for boss rule.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Michael Madigan, Speaker, House, Illinois, corruption, machine

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ballot access government transparency Popular

The Rank Reality of Math

Maine, Ranked Choice Voting, black box, elections, democracy

U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R‑Maine) doesn’t like Ranked Choice Voting.

Last week, I suggested that’s because he lost his re-​election to Congress in his state’s first use of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). Perhaps I spoke too quickly? Congressman Poliquin argues that RCV is a “black-​box voting system.”

“We heard from countless Maine voters who were confused and even frightened their votes did not count due to computer-​engineered rank voting,” read a campaign statement.

Who wants frightened voters?

The “voting system utilized by the Secretary of State is secret,” Poliquin’s campaign spokesman further complained. “No one is able to review the software or computer algorithm used by a computer to determine elections. This artificial intelligence is not transparent.”

Computer-​engineered elections? Artificial intelligence? Oh, my!

“I think it’s time that we have real ballots, counted by real people,” the congressman told reporters. “… instead of this black box that computes who wins and who loses.”

By all means, yes.

Nathan Tefft is a professor at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and claims to be “a real person.” With a PhD in economics. He got all the election data and replicated the ranked ‑choice process used by the Maine Secretary of State in conducting the count, confirming the state’s results.

“The Maine secretary of state’s office has published all the election results on its website — every ballot, every ranking in every town,” the Bangor Daily News informed. “It’s all there in massive data files that can be inspected and downloaded.”

Wait a second … what about the black-​box, the secrecy, the dreaded use of AI?

All a fable.

“Yeah,” Dr. Tefft noted, “it’s just math.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
ballot access general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall media and media people Regulating Protest

Three Bad Propositions

initiative, petition, power, money, elections

Two propositions on this November’s California ballot, Propositions 8 and 11, have found an opponent.

“Both would have voters decide very narrow union-​management conflicts in two relatively small medical service sectors,” explains Dan Walters, long the dean of California columnists. Unions are sponsoring Prop 8, which “purports to limit profits in clinics that provide dialysis treatments to sufferers of kidney failure.” Ambulance companies are behind Prop 11, which would “require ambulance crews to remain on call during meal and rest breaks.”

Walters thinks it “foolish to expect November’s nine-​plus million voters to make even semi-​informed decisions about their provisions, much less understand how dialysis clinics and ambulance services operate, or should operate.”

Well, yes, but this criticism applies to government universally. Legislators don’t understand how every business or industry functions, or should function, either. Even when politicians pretend to comprehend, by what right do they micromanage other people’s businesses and labor contracts?

Freedom, not government regulation, should be the default position.

But Walters’ fix runs against this logic. He thinks that upping the required percentage of signatures for ballot placement “by half … might discourage the misuse of the system for issues that cannot be fairly and rationally decided by voters.”

Don’t bet on it.

As Walters himself admits, making it tougher and more expensive to petition a measure onto the ballot won’t block the well-​heeled: “any interest group with a few million bucks and an axe to grind can qualify a ballot measure, regardless of their merits.”

But it would disenfranchise grassroots groups.

Defeat bad measures; don’t destroy the democratic process.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
ballot access incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Intentionally Confounding Incumbents

Memphis, ballot, instant runoff, term limits

The three issues on the ballot in Memphis this November are “not complicated,” writes Commercial Appeal columnist David Waters, “unless you read the actual ballot questions.”

Which is all most voters will see.

All three directly affect the self-​interest of members of the Memphis City Council, which placed them on the ballot and determined the language voters will attempt to decipher. 

Waters called that ballot wording “incomprehensible” and “intentionally confounding.” His newspaper colleague, Ryan Poe, accused the council of “trying to stack the deck.”

The first measure would weaken the council’s term limits, passed in 2011 with a 78 percent vote and just about to kick in. The ballot language, Mr. Poe explains, “reads like voters are being asked to place limits on council members … rather than extend them.” By an extra term.

The second issue would repeal Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), which was brought forth by citizen petition and enacted via a 71 percent yes vote. The confusing ballot wording brings up a 1991 federal court decision without providing voters any context or explanation.

Though IRV has not yet been used, council incumbents fear it.* This becomes especially clear when you discover that the third ballot question is actually a sneakier, second attempt to repeal IRV.

“Instant runoffs, and run-​off elections in general, tend to make it easier for challengers to unseat incumbents in multi-​candidate district races,” argues Waters. He adds, “Incumbents generally become stronger the longer they are in office.”

To incumbent politicians, reform is a dirty word. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Back in February, the council was caught paying a lobbyist to convince state legislators to restrict their city’s ability to implement Instant Runoff Voting. 

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Categories
ballot access national politics & policies

Party Line, Nudge Nudge

I’m all for government transparency. But transparent politicians?

The office of New Mexico’s Secretary of State sent out a press release, yesterday, announcing that Secretary Toulouse Oliver “is formatting the 2018 general election ballot to once again include the option for ‘straight party’ voting.”

“The more options people have,” Oliver is quoted for explanation, “the easier it is for more eligible voters to participate — and participation is the key to our democratic process.”

This sounds all very nice and good. More options!

But hers was not a conscientious and noble adoption of a choice-​promoting democratic notion. The whole point is to nudge voters to not consider a non‑R/​non‑D alternative — perhaps especially in the state’s contest for the U.S. Senate.

In which former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson is making a not-​longshot run.

As a Libertarian.

Though the Secretary of State’s office pretends to be for democracy, I have trouble buying that Ms. Oliver’s motives are non-​partisan. Ditto Gary Johnson.

“Pushing voters toward straight ticket voting is a worn-​out staple of major party incumbents,” says the candidate, “and flies in the face of the reality that the great majority of voters are independent-​minded and don’t need or appreciate a ballot that provides a short-​cut to partisanship.”

It’s a standard way to gain, as one Democratic State Senator put it, “partisan advantage in low-​information elections.”*

Matt Welch at Reason quotes ballot access expert Richard Winger to show how old a gimmick it is. It’s been on its way out, actually (only nine states sport the “feature”), probably because … it’s just so obvious a ploy. 

Transparent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

 

* The partisanship is also not appreciated by the Republican Party of New Mexico, which is suing the Secretary of State.

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