{"id":14101,"date":"2012-01-07T20:20:24","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T20:20:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-01-07T20:20:24","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T20:20:24","slug":"do-we-need-a-writein-line-on-the-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2012\/01\/07\/do-we-need-a-writein-line-on-the-ballot\/","title":{"rendered":"Do We Need a Write-in Line on the Ballot?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>AB 1413 makes &#8220;technical changes&#8221; to election law<\/i><\/p>\n<p>by Brian Leubitz<\/p>\n<p>A bill by Asm. Paul Fong would eliminate the write-in line on the &#8220;general&#8221; election ballot next November. From Ballot Access News:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On January 10, at 1:30 p.m., the California Senate Elections Committee will hear AB 1413. The bill abolishes write-in space on general election ballots for Congress and partisan state office. It also makes various other technical changes that will alter the top-two system passed by the voters in June 2010, when they approved Proposition 14 by a 53.7-46.3% margin.<\/p>\n<p>Existing law says the ballot should contain write-in space, but that write-ins cannot be counted. It is wildly irrational for the existing law to leave write-in space on the ballot and yet say they can never be counted. There are two obvious ways to fix this: either repeal the law that says write-ins can&#8217;t be counted; or change the law to eliminate write-in space on ballots. The author of AB 1413, Assemblyman Paul Fong, has chosen the more repressive choice. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ballot-access.org\/2012\/01\/06\/california-top-two-supporters-hope-to-eliminate-write-in-space-on-california-general-election-ballots-at-january-10-hearing\/\">Ballot Access News<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Clearly we don&#8217;t need to have a line on the ballot that we aren&#8217;t going to count. &nbsp;And you can understand the logic that since we are doing a &#8220;top-2&#8221; election system we don&#8217;t need that line. &nbsp;The proponents of Prop 14, certainly argue as much. &nbsp;However, what if there are changed situations which make the two candidates unacceptable. &nbsp;It gives no opportunity to change our minds from June to November. &nbsp;So&#8230;recall it is then?<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, it is an interesting question to consider as you enjoy some unseasonably warm weather.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><i>AB 1413 makes &#8220;technical changes&#8221; to election law<\/i><\/p>\n<p>by Brian Leubitz<\/p>\n<p>A bill by Asm. Paul Fong would eliminate the write-in line on the &#8220;general&#8221; election ballot next November. From Ballot Access News:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On January 10, at 1:30 p.m., the California Senate Elections Committee will hear AB 1413. The bill abolishes write-in space on general election ballots for Congress and partisan state office. It also makes various other technical changes that will alter the top-two system passed by the voters in June 2010, when they approved Proposition 14 by a 53.7-46.3% margin.<\/p>\n<p>Existing law says the ballot should contain write-in space, but that write-ins cannot be counted. It is wildly irrational for the existing law to leave write-in space on the ballot and yet say they can never be counted. There are two obvious ways to fix this: either repeal the law that says write-ins can&#8217;t be counted; or change the law to eliminate write-in space on ballots. The author of AB 1413, Assemblyman Paul Fong, has chosen the more repressive choice. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ballot-access.org\/2012\/01\/06\/california-top-two-supporters-hope-to-eliminate-write-in-space-on-california-general-election-ballots-at-january-10-hearing\/\">Ballot Access News<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Clearly we don&#8217;t need to have a line on the ballot that we aren&#8217;t going to count. &nbsp;And you can understand the logic that since we are doing a &#8220;top-2&#8221; election system we don&#8217;t need that line. &nbsp;The proponents of Prop 14, certainly argue as much. &nbsp;However, what if there are changed situations which make the two candidates unacceptable. &nbsp;It gives no opportunity to change our minds from June to November. &nbsp;So&#8230;recall it is then?<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, it is an interesting question to consider as you enjoy some unseasonably warm weather.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[519],"class_list":["post-14101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-519"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-3Fr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}