Last night I was fortunate enough to be present at a small-group discussion with Secretary of State Debra Bowen hosted by the California League of Conservation Voters.  Despite this being a hectic time for the Secretary of State (E-12, in her parlance), she took a couple hours to fill us in on efforts leading up to this year of three separate elections.

In the final two weeks for voters to be eligible for the February 5 primary, there was a surge of registration.  At a “midnight registration drive” in Sacramento, over 1,500 citizens registered to vote in one day (sadly, registrars in places like Los Angeles County resisted efforts to do the same because it would be “inconvenient” for them to update their voter rolls).  While she had no prediction on turnout in the primary, Bowen was confident that there will be a lot of excitement and potentially a good turnout.  One drawback is the fact that decline-to-state voters have to opt-in to receive a ballot for the Democratic primary (they are shut out from the Republican primary).  When I asked Bowen about this, she replied that counties are required to actually notify DTS voters of their rights, and that some precinct locations will have signage notifying them to that end, but that this is insufficient and her hands are tied by state law to some extent.  The parties who want to welcome DTS voters into their primary have a big role to play in this.  The Democratic Party, if they want to expand their base, should make a legitimate effort to let DTS voters know they can vote in the primary.  It will have the effect of getting them in the habit of voting Democratic and give them a stake in the party.  There are also legislative reforms, regarding mandatory signage inside the polling place, changes to the vote-by-mail process (nonpartisan voters must request a partisan ballot), that can be taken.

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Bowen’s great achievements since taking over the Secretary of State’s office include an insistence on voter security, and outreach to young voters.  On the security front, despite the howls of protest from county registrars, Bowen will be limiting precincts to one touch-screen voting machine (for disabled voters) and will be undergoing increased security and auditing procedures.  A lot of these measures will be behind the scenes, like delivering voting equipment in tamper-proof bags so that evidence of changes to the equipment will be obvious.  And the auditing procedures, with an open testing process, may delay voting results, but are crucial to maintain confidence in the vote.  A court recently ruled in favor of Bowen and against San Diego County in implementing these changes, but she expects an appeal.  As Bowen said, “Since cavemen put black stones on one side and white stones on the other, people have tried to affect election results.”  But she is doing whatever possible to make sure those efforts will be supremely difficult in California.  None of her provisions so far are slam-dunks; it’s hard to create something foolproof, considering that memory cards for many machines can fit in your pocket, and so many machines are hackable.  But Bowen is making an excellent start.

Bowen was cool to this idea of voter fraud, which has been pushed by conservatives for years.  She described that there has only been one documented case of voter fraud in recent history, and that it’s a high-work, low-reward strategy for cheating.  Efforts to stop this non-existent problem include voter ID laws, expected to get a boost with the Supreme Court likely to allow the one in Indiana to go forward, despite Constitutional concerns.  While Bowen deflected many attempts to get voter ID laws enacted in California while on the Elections Committee in the Senate, she believed that such attempts would never pass this Legislature.

As far as reaching out to young voters, we all know about Bowen’s use of MySpace and Facebook to keep young voters informed (and yes, she also reads Calitics).  But one measure she talked about last night struck me.  On February 5, over 140,000 California high school students will engage in a mock election, featuring a Presidential primary and three mock ballot initiatives: 1) should the vehicle license fee be ties to auto emissions, 2) should voting be mandatory, and 3) should government do more to stop bullying on social networking sites.  This is an ingenious way to get people interested and excited in politics at an early age, and sounds like a model program.

We have a long way to go on national election reform; Bowen noted that only three Secretaries of State (her, and the two in Ohio and Minnesota) agree that there needs to be a federal standard for national elections.  What we need to do is elect more competent professionals like Debra Bowen and keep pushing the debate in the direction of reform and voter confidence.

This is a really frustrating sign for democracy in the nation’s largest state.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen said today that nearly one million fewer people are registered to vote in the state than two years ago. In February 2005 there were 16,628,673 registered. This year’s figure is down to 15,682,358 […]

“The percentage of people who have regsitered to vote vesus the total number of people eligible to register has dropped 5 percentage points in the past two years. This means fewer people are making the critical decisions that affect the lives of 37 million Californians,” Bowen said in a statement accompanying the newest Report of Registration.

We have two parties in California that are fairly dysfunctional.  The gerrymander of 2001 means that relatively few races are contested statewide, and given how adamant Nancy Pelosi and her allies are about keeping things the same, I don’t see that changing in the near future.  When you don’t have the energy and excitement that accompany contested races, you tend to get lower participation rates, and worse, less people even interested in the civic process at all.  The recent post-partisanship and cooperation and progress between Democrats and Republicans Democrats and a Republican governor who wanted to save his job may push the needle on this in the other direction, but I doubt it.  This survey by Binder research shows the real problem with the term limits initiative, the fact that the perception of it as a power grab by elected officials will threaten its viability.

We already know that voters don’t like Schwarzenegger and the Legislature fighting. A survey by David Binder Research in January 2006 showed only 46% support for “adjusting” term limits. Now, that figure is 59% in support of modifying the law through a ballot proposition. That corresponds with a better view of the Legislature and Schwarzenegger. In 2006, 42% of voters said they approved of the job performance of the Legislature, but a year later that has jumped to 49%. Schwarzenegger himself jumped from 53% approval to 68% in the Binder survey.

But it comes with caveats. After the initial questions, the survey-takers explained some of the arguments against the initiative: It would grandfather current members and would permit some lawmakers to easily win re-election at a time when California needs “new blood.” Support for the initiative dropped to 54% of those surveyed, with 35% saying they would vote no and 11% undecided. Anything lower than that – especially without an opposition campaign started yet – would be a major danger sign for any initiative.

I think the universal pre-school initiative was well ahead of that number in a similar poll a year out.  It lost big.

The point is that voters believe that they have little direct voice in choosing their legislators; the gerrymander does it for them.  They view all of the machinations of the legislators with cynicism, expecting that they’re a bunch of people who want to keep power.  They are disconnected from the business in Sacramento by a state media that, by and large, doesn’t report on it.  And the state parties are flaccid, irrelevant to the everyday concerns of citizens and disassociated from the grassroots.

I want this to change.  The future of California as a national bellweather and the source of progressive change depends on it.  That’s why I got active in the party and became a delegate.  The California Democratic Party convention next month is the perfect opportunity to begin to reverse this troubling trend of non-participation.  It’s important to note that there are many in the political class who don’t really want more participation.  A small turnout is one that is quantifiable and easier to manage.  But it’s corrosive to the process of democracy, and ultimately I believe that when people are engaged, progressives win because we have the issues in our favor.

We desperately need the state party to adopt a 58-county strategy and compete in every borough, village and hamlet in California, letting the residents there know that they have a choice.  There’s a second gerrymander at work here beyond the chopping up of legislative districts; there’s the gerrymander created by the CDP choosing not to compete on what they consider unfriendly turf.  Jerry McNerney, Charlie Brown and others ought to have put that fiction to rest.  If we make the effort to fully fund Democratic organizations all over the state, activate core supporters everywhere, and make our case no matter what the environment or the partisan index, I have no doubt we will be successful.  In addition, by becoming a presence at the grassroots level, the CDP will bring voters back into the process again, and help increase voter participation instead of contributing to the decrease.

You can read the resolution promoting a 58-county strategy for California.  I will be at the Santa Monica Democratic Club’s executive meeting tonight asking for their endorsement.  This is absolutely vital to the future of democracy and the progressive movement.