With California voters turning increasingly to the mail box to cast their ballots, five counties have set up an expanded vote-by-mail system for this year’s elections. Sacramento, Madera, Napa, Nevada and San Mateo are swapping out more than 500 neighborhood polling places and replacing them with nearly 80 high-tech “vote centers.”
Doug Applegate, left, and Darrell Issa. (Photo illustration by Tim Foster, Capitol Weekly)EXIT POLL: What a year it has been for polling-related news in California – please try to contain your excitement. The venerable Field Poll went online (shades of Dylan Goes Electric). Meanwhile, USC and the LA Times combined to produce the most, um, “noteworthy” poll of the cycle (shades of Dewey Defeats Truman), which polling Director Dan Schnur posted on twitter “is wrong, but still gives us important info…”
Vintage Illustration of Mr. ZIP, modified by Tim Foster/Capitol WeeklyIncreasingly, California voters use the mailbox, not the ballot box. But in three of California’s 58 counties — Plumas, Alpine and Sierra — there was no other choice but mail-in voting. And they like it that way.
Former California Gov. Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy voting in the 1980 presidential general election. (Photo: Associated Press)There are few more iconic images in American politics than the candidate and spouse exiting the polling booth on Election Day. The sun is shining, the vibrant political family is in full bloom and democracy is in the air. But, in modern elections, this is changing