When I used to live on the Left Coast, I found many folks who referred to California as the Granola State. When I innocently inquired as to why, the response was “because if you are not a fruit or a nut, you are a flake.” While this is a bit harsh, I discovered new evidence for this conclusion today regarding California’s governor recall election.
To my knowledge, in the other forty-nine States, when you have candidates running for the same office, they are listed alphabetically. Usually they are sorted by party affiliation, but the intent is to make it as easy as possible for the voter to find their preferred candidate. Not in California.
According to The Mercury News, California randomly creates a new alphabetical order for each election in order to remove any benefit to being listed first on the ballot.
Jeff Rainforth, chairman of the Reform Party of California, thought he'd won top billing after R was the first letter pulled out of the Keno-style tumbler.
"We were pretty ecstatic," said the 35-year-old Rainforth, whose name ranks first - alphabetically, at least - among 15 would-be governors whose surnames begin with the lucky letter.
But under the lottery-style system, the reordered 26-letter alphabet - beginning R, W, Q, O, J, M, V, A and eventually ending with L - is applied throughout candidates' names.
That means that David Laughing Horse Robinson, chairman of the Kawaiisu Indian tribe, goes first, not Rainforth, because O comes before A in the state's newfangled alphabet.
To avoid giving any one candidate a lasting edge, their names will be rotated one position for each Assembly district, of which there are 80. Robinson's name will be first on the ballot only in California 1st district, which stretches from the northernmost border to Sonoma County.
Clear? No wonder California is over $38 billion dollars in debt - they make even simple ideas complicated. So even if a voter finds the Rs when looking for Rainsforth, the Rs themselves are not in alphabetical order. So then the voter needs to just scan all the Rs to find his preferred candidate. Keep in mind, there are over a 100 candidates running for governor.
For the sake of argument, let us assume that there really is a bias in favor of whoever appears near the top of the ballet. So we are assuming California has a valid reason for being different than the other 49 States (and this is a big assumption, I am not impressed by the research that claims there is a bias). Why not use standard alphabetical order, but rotate the starting letter? For example, in California district 1 use a standard alphabetical list. In California district 2, start with the Bs and proceed normally to Z, then put the As at the end. For district 3, start with the Cs, etc... This would accomplish California's stated objective and be far less confusing. But if California politicians were competent, they wouldn't have an energy crisis.
For my part, I confidently make one prediction about the California recall election. I predict long lines in this election for Californians.
Trust me the 49 other states aren't standard either. I've been involved in several different legal battles that involve the way candiates are listed. Some bold fonts..some not, some listed with titles, others not, some use legal names, others use names that we're filed, some use font's that don't support special characters...and the list goes on.
Ton's of variations and realy in most states it comes down with how each city, county and/or state registrar decides to rule on what ever law or policy exists. It's very hard to appeal and change before an election.
Kolibri,
Thanks for the link. I've seen studies going up to 5% before, but not as high as 9%. When they publish their study, I'll try to read it and see if their methodology seems sound.
Richard,
I didn't mean to imply the other 49 states were perfect. Florida alone proves otherwise. However, I am not aware of any other state that does not use a combination of party affiliation and alphabetical order to list the candidates. California seems unique in this, uh, innovation.
Does this form work like a guestbook?
Hey, what about shrinking the Assembly districts so that each candidate can get one where he/she is on top of the list? :)
If Californians were worried about the costs, both in money and time wasted on campaigning by those who are (still) holding office now, they wouldn't have started this whole recall adventure in the first place...
The research these measures are based on is quite surprising to me:
"In the 2000 presidential race, George W. Bush received 9 percent more votes among Californians when he was listed first on the ballot than when he was listed later, a new study found."
http://www.acs.ohio-state.e...
I've not heard of anything like that here in Germany. As far as I know, parties and candidates on the ballot are ordered according to their success in the previous election.