Posts Tagged: Paul Mitchell
News
Over five million California voters – nearly a quarter of the state’s registered electorate — have returned ballots for the General Election, which is less than two weeks away. This milestone, hit yesterday at 13 days until the election, wasn’t achieved in 2016 until the day before the election and exceeds the entire early by-mail vote in 2018.
News
Vote-by-mail ballots have been sent to all registered voters in Amador County, with Solano reporting they will be mailing ballots today, while Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego counties — and maybe others – will be mailing next week. These counties are getting ahead of the Oct. 5 deadline for California counties to mail ballots. In other states, meanwhile, voting has been taking place for weeks.
News
The California Citizen’s Redistricting Commission has now seated all 14 members that will redraw the state’s legislative, congressional and Board of Equalization seats in 2021. This team is comprised of eight commissioners selected through a random draw among 35 finalists, and the remaining six are chosen through a selection process intended to balance out the commission on a number of factors, including race, ethnicity, gender, geography and skill sets.
News
A lot is riding on this decennial tally: It affects the way federal funding is distributed and it can have a dramatic impact on the boundaries — and number — of political districts. This time around, California’s congressional seats are on shaky ground. But the uncertainty stems as much from President Trump’s actions as from the long-awaited 2020 census numbers, which have been delayed because of the pandemic.
News
The 2021 redistricting has begun in earnest with the seating of the first eight members of the California Citizens Commission, the so-called “Lucky Eight” because they were seated after a random draw of ping-pong balls. In the quarantine era, this drawing, carried live, likely qualified as riveting entertainment.
Podcast
California’s Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission is generally regarded as a model of its kind, achieving balance and representation through a carefully constructed mix of quotas, political gamesmanship and random selection. How then, did the first round of new commissioners selected on July 2 (eight of a total of 14) fail to include a single Latino, the state’s largest ethnic group?
Podcast
Political data expert Paul Mitchell joins John and Tim — remotely, of course — on the Capitol Weekly Podcast to talk about the mechanics of a vote-by-mail election in November, how COVID-19 is impacting the prospects for redistricting, the census and what he learned by turning 50 while on quarantine.
Analysis
When Californians went to the polls in March, the big news was the consolidation of the Democratic primary contest. Few would have expected that we were also effectively seeing the end of the primary election season — with subsequent elections throughout the spring either cancelled or run under the cloud of a viral pandemic.
News
Amid the piles of bills and other notices in the mail, a special invitation to complete the national census is coming to Californians beginning this week. The census, which happens once every 10 years, is a mammoth effort to get a snapshot of who is living here as of April 1. The results will be used to determine everything from Congressional representation to federal funding for health, education, child care and transportation.
Podcast
Career political data analyst Paul Mitchell joins Tim Foster and John Howard to weigh in on the state of the race, the implications of the Super Tuesday results, where Warren’s supporters go now that she’s out, and when we might have final tally from California’s primary.