(cross-posted from the Courage Campaign blog)

I received my Democratic primary ballot in the mail and I was pleased to see right there at the top of page 1 these fateful words: "NONPARTISAN VOTERS ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED TO MARK AN ADDITIONAL BUBBLE TO CROSSOVER."    

Check it:

Back in February, The Courage Campaign led the charge not only to educate DTS voters in LA County about the bizarre requirement to fill out the "Democratic Party" bubble in addition to requesting a Democratic presidential primary ballot but then faught hard to get the LA County Registrar of Voters to count the votes of DTS voters in February 5th’s primary. Thanks to that effort, acting LA County Registrar Dean Logan reversed himself and ended up counting 50,000 or so Democratic presidential votes where the intent of unaffiliated voters was clear.

What’s great about the triumphant post-script that the disclaimer at the top of the LA County Democratic ballot represents is that it signals that our victory was not fleeting and it was not merely putting a bandaid on a wound. Thanks to the mobilization of progressives by the Courage Campaign and Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s leadership, thousands of Los Angeles DTS voters will no longer have to fear being disenfranchised because of a stupid rule and a poorly designed ballot, which is progress indeed.

Sure, you’ve seen the Yes We Can video, but I like the M.c.Cain version.

Environment: Other news of note, it seems SB 908, which would include climate change in the science curriculum, isn’t popular with some Republicans. Science is political, I suppose. Count soon-to-be-recalled Senator Jeff Denham among the skeptics, because Denham knows waaaay more about climate science than the IPCC.

“Some wouldn’t view them as skeptics. Some would view them as the right side of the issue,” said Denham, an Atwater almond farmer who also runs a plastics recycling business.

“We don’t have complete factual information yet,” Denham said. “From what I have seen the Earth has heated and cooled on its own for centuries. I don’t know that there’s anything that is a direct cause of that right now, but we can do a better job of cleaning up our planet.” (SJ Merc 2/15/08)

Double Bubble: Don’t worry about this double bubble, thing, b/c, you know, it’s been happening for years. So, no, big, whoop, right?

Six years ago, Los Angeles County began using a ballot for nonpartisan voters that had a little-noticed design flaw. Confusion over how to mark the ballot, critics say, caused tens of thousands of votes to go uncounted in three elections between 2002 and 2006.

At the time, election officials knew that some votes were not being counted but saw no need to make changes. After all, the missing votes went unnoticed in the three primary elections and no one complained.(LAT 2/18/08)

Openness: Hey, this is an open thread. Have a great President’s Day!