Image by Cagkan SayinThere’s only two weeks before the completion of the 2024 March Primary and early numbers are suggesting an historically low turnout. Will this have an impact on a big race like the US Senate contest? Maybe.
Graphic representation of Mental Health Disorder. Image via ShutterstockCAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: We’re joined today by Dr. Janet Coffman of Healthforce Center at UCSF, and Michelle Doty Cabrera, Executive Director of CBHDA. They describe the serious challenges facing the state’s mental health and substance abuse programs, and what is needed to grow and retain a behavioral health workforce that reflects California’s diverse populations.
Gov. Gavin Newsom at an environmental cleanup even in Long Beach on Aug. 5.(Photo: Howard Freshman)ANALYSIS: We’re headed for another recall election, the first in nearly 20 years. A lot of things have changed, including the number of voters who will be casting their ballots by mail. Looking back at 2003, there were only 3 million voters who received their ballots in the mail. This cycle, all 22 million voters are getting their ballots in the mail, and we’re likely to see the vast majority of those cast by mail prior to Election Day.
A photo illustration of whisper campaigns and conspiracies. (Image: Valery Sidelnykov, via Shutterstock)In our culture, conspiracy theories are running rampant, and elections seem to be particularly prone to the craziest among them. Republicans, led by the president, have claimed that vote-by-mail is unsafe, non-citizens are registered to vote and casting ballots. Ballot “harvesting” is causing rampant voter fraud, President Trump says, and the system is being rigged against him. Even Attorney General Bill Barr claimed, incorrectly, that vote-by-mail eliminates the secret nature of voting in the US.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders walking in the Independence Day parade with supporters in Ames, Iowa. (Photo by Gage Skidmore, FlickrCalifornia’s likely voters increasingly support Sen. Bernie Sanders in the March 3 Democratic presidential primary, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden following closely, according to Capitol Weekly’s January tracking poll. Sanders, who is capturing strong support from Latinos, has taken the lead in our survey for the first time since we began polling the Democratic field in September.
Voter registration forms at the Santa Cruz County registrar's office. (Photo: Political Data, Inc.)About 4 million-plus independent voters who are eligible to vote in the Democratic Primary will see no presidential candidates at all on their ballots. What?? Yes. In March 2020, in one of the hottest primary elections in recent history, where California is set to play a more important role than usual as the largest state on Super Tuesday, there will be approximately 3.5 million voters receiving blank presidential ballots.
A political rally in southern California during the 2016 election cycle. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)With the close of the 2018 primary election cycle, we get another chance to see how campaigns have evolved under California’s top-two open primary system. The most noteworthy change appears to be the manner by which campaigns are extending their reach across the partisan aisle. But they are not doing it in the way that the authors of the Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act, which took effect in 2011, intended.
Illustration of a California voter casting a ballot. (Photo: Vepar5, via Shutterstock)Before Election Day, fewer than one in every five California voters have cast their ballots. About 11.8 primary election million ballots were mailed during the past month — 5.3 million to Democrats and about 3.1 million to Republicans, according to figures compiled by Political Data, a firm that markets campaign information.
A street sign for voters. (Photo by Gustavo Frazao, via Shutterstock)CA120: The 2016 General Absentee Vote Tracker is up, and over two million California voters have already returned their ballots. This year, a great deal of national attention is being paid to the rate of early voting, and politicos on both sides of the aisle are using this data to make predictions in the presidential, congressional and state contests.
Voters in Ventura County cast ballots during a recent election. (Photo: Spirit of America, Shutterstock)OPINION: The administrative procedures, technology systems and people who manage elections are the essential elements of self-governance – the distribution of ballots and information, the collecting, the counting, the reporting. Like much of our public infrastructure, these systems are not always adequately maintained or updated, until they make headlines themselves.