Posts Tagged: turnout

News

CA120: A close look at California’s foreign-born voters

Latinos taking the Pledge of Allegiance in Los Angeles. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)

To set the record straight, we are talking about full U.S. citizens, not some fictional “illegal” voters. There are 3.8 million foreign born voters on the California voter file, including 1.4 million born in Latin America. Each of these has had their eligibility verified by their county registrars, and by either the Social Security Administration, the California Department of Motor Vehicles, or with a valid state identification (generally a driver’s license) presented at their polling place the first time they vote.

News

CA120: Tracking the absentee vote tracker

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.

News

Hey, voters: Watch the Birdee

For the next six months, California voters will be bombarded with election images. Among the sinister attack-ad voice-overs and the political arguments engulfing social media, voters may catch a glimpse of ”Birdee,” a plump, twinkly eyed red bird, one of several animated characters in California’s political wars.

News

Sharp concerns over crowded ballot

Voters in Ventura County cast ballots during a recent election. (Photo: Spirit of America, Shutterstock)

California’s clogged, high-stakes November ballot is riveting voters’ attention – and raising fears among those who have to count the votes. It’s a perfect storm: Intense interest in the presidential general election, a deluge of six dozen ballot in initiatives cleared for circulation, labor-intensive signature-verification requirements and the likelihood that the potential initiatives will be submitted in a tight time window, thus further straining resources.

Opinion

Does Trump affect down-ballot races?

A California voter casts a ballot. (Photo: Vepar5)

OPINION: In a fairly rare occurrence, this year’s primary election in California could actually matter in terms of who becomes the Republican Party’s nominee. California had a chance of being relevant with March primaries in 1996, 2000 and 2004; however, Bob Dole and George W. Bush already had largely sealed their deals.

Analysis

Time, the killer of campaigns

Illustration by Judd Hertzler/Capitol Weekly.

ANALYSIS: Most politicos are fans of the movie The Candidate, a 1972 political drama where a U.S. Senate candidate, Bill McKay, seeks an underdog win in his first campaign. The energy and excitement builds up for months leading to a pivotal sunny Tuesday in California when everyone heads to the polls. The movie is filled with young excited volunteers rushing out to put up door hangers, check polling locations to see who’s voted, and make phone calls to those who haven’t – all parts of the traditional get out the vote efforts known in the business as G.O.T.V. But if this campaign were a modern campaign it would also be a losing campaign.

News

Motor voter: An electorate in flux

As rush hour approaches, traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. (Photo: Frontpage)

To political experts up and down California, California’s new Motor Voter law is a question mark that likely will involve rethinking some practices and require a great deal of new effort. To Democrats, it’s the long-overdue removal of a barricade to full participation in California’s civic life. To Republicans, it poses a danger that a flood of illegal immigrants will start participating in political decision-making.

News

Voters: Many just can’t be bothered

Voters cast ballots at the November 2014 general election in Oak View, Calif. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)

We Californians justifiably become excited about our many remarkable achievements: we make terrific movies; Silicon Valley leads the planet in technological innovation; our traffic jams are world class. But when it comes to voting, we give a statewide shrug. A mere 42.2 percent of registered voters — registered voters — bothered to cast ballots in the November 2014 general election. Los Angeles County bottomed out statewide with a turnout of 31 percent. It gets even worse: The June 2014 turnout was 25.2 percent.

News

Limited knowledge of English hampers voter turnout

California voters at the polls in Ventura County, 2012. (Photo: American Spirit, via Shutterstock)

Some 2.6 million of California’s eligible voters — about one in nine — speak only limited English and many of them can’t get election information in their native languages, a problem that is playing out in low turnout numbers for Asians and Latinos, according to a new study.

News

Poll: Historic low turnout predicted

A Californian casts a ballot. (Photo: Vepar5 via Shutterstock)

The Field Poll estimates that only 8.2 million Californians will participate in today’s statewide general election. This would represent a turnout of just 46.1% of the state’s 17.8 million registered voters and just 33.8% of the state’s 24.3 million adult citizens who are eligible to register and vote. Both would represent record lows for a statewide general election in California in the modern era.

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