Turnout hits dismal records
by Brian Leubitz
Yikes.
With almost every vote counted across the state, it appears about 42 percent of the state’s 17.8 million registered voters cast ballots. That shatters the previous low of 50.5 percent set in 2002, when Gov. Gray Davis won re-election over Republican businessman Bill Simon.(SF Chronicle)
It was something of a perfect storm here in California. No major statewide contests and nothing national to draw voters in combined with some rather boring statewide measures. But still, yikes.
It is hard to argue that California has made it hard to vote, but we could still make the process smoother. Same-day registration comes to mind first, but there are certainly several other measures that could be considered.
I suppose I’m preaching to the choir here, but come on people, democracy is a use it or lose it proposition.
The problem is that it wasn’t a very exciting election
The Governor’s race and most of the top statewide races were foregone conclusions
The only race with some competition was Torlakson – Tuck for Supv of Public Education
Not very exciting (the good guy won(
Jerry Brown might have done some campaigning to liven up things
Usually int’s the propositions that bring out voters
… the California ballot is quite challenging, with the vast number of local races for city councils, county councils, school boards, community college boards, water boards, boards of equalization, judges, and tons of other randomness. When we compare voting numbers in the US to, say, the UK or Germany, you need to remember that the European voter is typically asked to make only one or two choices, and that’s it. A California voter gets a book.
You can argue that our system is more democratic, but is it really? In my area (Santa Clara County), a multimillionaire who had been fined for excessive water use just won a seat on the water board! He did so by spending about 100x as much as the other guy, so now we have a wealthy water waster on the water board. We should have just made the county government responsible for water along with everything else.