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Revamp of San Diego elections dies despite broad reform group push
Jul 23 2020
Griffiths is the editor of Independent Voter News, where a version of this story first appeared.
An election overhaul in the nation's eight largest city, designed to expand voters' viable choices and minimize polarization, has been killed by the San Diego City Council.
A broad coalition of democracy reform advocacy groups had made it a top priority to get a referendum revamping the municipal voting process on the November ballot, viewing the city as receptive to the plan. But the proposal was blocked Tuesday by the council on a 5-4 vote.
If adopted, San Diego would have replaced traditional partisan primaries for each office with a single contest open to all candidates, with the top four finishers advancing to a November election decided by ranked-choice voting.
<p>"I want to tip my hat to the remarkable coalition that came together in support of change, and the heartfelt expressions of support of so many people seeking better elections in San Diego," said Rob Richie, who runs <a data-linked-post="2638674439" href="https://thefulcrum.us/fairvote" target="_blank">FairVote</a>, which advocates for ranked elections. "That commitment will result in change in the future." </p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>The advocates took some solace that their proposal secured bipartisan support. It was backed by two Democrats, a Republican and an independent. Four Democrats and a Republican formed the majority.</p><p>Local party leaders and partisan special interests teamed up to oppose the measure.</p><p>"From Maine to Alaska, nonpartisan reformers have had to battle the combined opposition of those in control of both major political parties," said Cara Brown McCormick, who has run two successful RCV campaigns in Maine and pressed the proposal in California. "The fact that some elected officials would refuse to give the people of San Diego a chance to vote on this measure tells you everything you need to know about why we need this reform so badly."</p><p>The proposal was brought forward by an unusually broad coalition spanning the ideological spectrum, including the <a data-linked-post="2638675562" href="https://thefulcrum.us/directory/league-of-women-voters" target="_blank">League of Women Voters</a> of San Diego, FairVote, <a data-linked-post="2638673288" href="https://thefulcrum.us/representus" target="_blank">RepresentUs</a>, <a data-linked-post="2638673039" href="https://thefulcrum.us/take-back-our-republic" target="_blank">Take Back Our Republic</a>, <a href="https://www.panasd.org/" target="_blank">The Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans</a>, <a data-linked-post="2638673372" href="https://thefulcrum.us/business-for-america" target="_blank">Business for America</a>, <a data-linked-post="2640917202" href="https://thefulcrum.us/the-people" target="_blank">The People</a>, <a data-linked-post="2638674228" href="https://thefulcrum.us/open-primaries" target="_blank">Open Primaries</a>, <a href="https://moralgovernance.org/" target="_blank">Community Advocates for a Just and Moral Governance</a>, <a href="https://sandiegoindivisible.com/" target="_blank">Indivisible</a> and the <a data-linked-post="2638675412" href="https://thefulcrum.us/directory/independent-voter-project" target="_blank">Independent Voter Project</a>.</p><p>The system, known as "Top4RCV," has emerged as a consensus favorite among nonpartisan election reformers across the country. A similar proposal will be on the ballot this fall in <a href="https://alaskansforbetterelections.com/" target="_blank">Alaska</a> and is gathering preliminary support in states as diverse as Wisconsin and Arkansas.</p><p>Lori Thiel, president of the city's League of Women Voters chapter, described the vote as a missed opportunity to elect "representatives with the broadest base of support, ensuring they're responsible to the most constituents."</p><p>"The measure would have resulted in better representation and a more diverse field of candidates," lamented Geneviéve Jones-Wright of Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance. "The measure would have helped us have a more inclusive democracy."</p><p>Advocates are confident that the candidates who win under the proposed system would have the broadest appeal and would campaign in nonpolarizing ways in order to turn off the fewest number of voters.</p><p>"We are very confident that this common-sense method of voting for candidates will gain more support as the word continues to spread around the community, " said Francis Johnson, chairman of Take Back Our Republic's board. "This is a temporary setback."</p><p><em>Visit </em><a href="https://ivn.us/" target="_blank"><em>IVN.us</em></a><em> for more coverage from Independent Voter News.</em></p>
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Harmeet Dhillon, one of the state's Republican National Committee members, says a new law's extension for postal delays creates "a lot of opportunity for mischief."
California will mail ballots to all and count those arriving 17 days late
Jun 26 2020
Griffiths is the editor of Independent Voter News.
Ballots will be delivered to every registered, active California voter this fall under a law signed Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The measure assures everyone in the nation's most populous state will be able to vote by mail in the presidential contest. It's the biggest single expansion so far of this alternative for the general election, when a surge of interest in absentee balloting nationwide seems guaranteed as a result of the coronavirus.
The bill also assures the outcome of close contests won't be known until nearly Thanksgiving, because a provision mandates that envelopes postmarked by Election Day be tabulated if they arrive as long as 17 days later. No other state has that long a grace period to allow for slow postal service.
<p>California's 55 electoral votes can be counted to go for Joe Biden, but President Trump will still have the opportunity to raise the state's unusually long delays in finalizing the returns if he decides to contest a close election nationwide. He has recently sowed doubt about the vote by amplifying his many unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud — which have included several unfounded allegations about California in recent weeks. </p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>More substantively, the new rule could create an exceptionally long wait time for final results of hotly contested ballot measures and races for congressional, state and local offices.</p><p>Passed overwhelmingly in the Democratic-majority Legislature with some GOP votes, the law closely mirrors <a data-linked-post="2646153281" href="https://thefulcrum.us/california-voting-2646153281" target="_blank">a pair of executive orders</a> the Democratic governor issued in the past month in the name of boosting turnout and keeping polling places healthy.</p><p>Republicans had <a data-linked-post="2646090939" href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/vote-by-mail-california" target="_blank">challenged</a> Newsom's actions as illegal executive overreach, but those lawsuits have now been rendered moot by the actions in Sacramento. Instead, the GOP is likely to focus its criticism on the newly lengthened extension for mailed votes.</p><p>Most voters in California are already registered permanent absentee, which means they automatically receive a ballot by mail for every primary and general election. Already this year, nearly 80 percent of active registered voters received a ballot by mail. The latest Public Policy Institute of California survey about attitudes toward state government found nearly <a href="https://www.ppic.org/press-release/many-in-state-say-the-worst-of-covid-19-is-ahead-for-u-s-most-prefer-caution-in-easing-restrictions-in-their-area/" target="_blank">three-quarters of likely voters</a> support expanding mail-in options for November.</p><p>"No one should have to risk their health — and possibly their life — to exercise their constitutional right to vote," said Democratic state Rep. Marc Berman, author of the new law. "In the midst of a deadly health pandemic, giving all California voters the opportunity to vote from the safety of their own home is the responsible thing to do."</p><p>The 17-day window, however, is being targeted by the GOP. One of the state's delegates to the Republican National Committee, Harmeet Dhillon, for instance, <a href="https://abc7.com/california-mail-in-ballots-2020-election-gavin-newsom-governor-november/6256365/" target="_blank">has labeled the expansion "bizarre"</a> and said it could open the floodgates to legal challenges over ballot signatures, raising integrity issues and dragging some races out for weeks.</p><p>"There is a lot of opportunity for mischief," she said. "There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty."</p><p>Much of the concern is over a practice colloquially known as <a href="https://ivn.us/2018/11/30/what-is-ballot-harvesting" target="_blank">ballot harvesting</a>. A state law enacted in 2016 makes it legal for anyone, paid political operative included, to collect and turn in mail-in ballots on behalf of voters. Democrats organized to take advantage of the liberalized rules and their collection efforts helped flip several Orange County congressional seats from red to blue in the 2018 midterm.</p><p>Democratic state Rep. Lorena Gonzales, an author of the law, said the change was simply meant to offer a public service, and that the rules prior to the bill's passage "provided yet another obstacle for individuals attempting to vote."</p><p>Those who object to the practice, however, say there is little protection against coercion, either by a family member or by a campaign collecting the ballots.</p><p>Last-minute ballot submissions slowed the count in several races in 2018, and bolstered a massive Democratic get-out-the-vote effort in several races. However, there is no evidence of widespread fraud. Republicans are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/we-got-our-clocks-cleaned-gop-quietly-works-to-expand-ballot-harvesting-in-california-while-criticizing-democrats-for-the-practice/2019/03/13/a432d902-41b7-11e9-922c-64d6b7840b82_story.html" target="_blank">reportedly</a> working to improve their own on-the-ground ballot collection operation for this November.</p><p>Many states have adopted measures to increase the use of mail-in voting in 2020, and some have already conducted all-mail elections with little problem. Nonpartisan reformers who <a href="https://ivn.us/posts/national-reformers-spotlight-record-setting-elections-under-vote-at-home-ranked-choice-voting" target="_blank">support increased use of vote-at-home methods</a> point to these elections as evidence that claims of widespread fraud under vote-by-mail are largely unfounded.</p><p>The biggest cast of voting fraud in recent years, forcing the do-over last year of a <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2019/02/21/state-board-votes-for-new-election-in-north-carolinas-9th-district/" target="_blank">tainted congressional contest</a>, centered on Republican misbehavior. Testimony after the 2018 election described how GOP political consultant Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. paid workers to collect ballots and return them to him, promising to then mail the ballots himself. Such ballot harvesting is illegal in North Carolina.</p><p><em>Visit </em><a href="https://ivn.us/" target="_blank"><em>IVN.us</em></a><em> for more coverage from Independent Voter News.</em></p>
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Unbreaking America: Justice for Sale
New film argues political corruption prevents criminal justice reform
Jun 19 2020
Griffiths is the editor of Independent Voter News.
Current events have turned everyone's attention to the nation's criminal justice system. Most Americans agree that the system is broken. Yet, in a new "Unbreaking America" film, RepresentUs makes the case that the criminal justice system remains broken because the broken U.S. political system keeps it that way.
"Even though crime rates across the U.S. are going down, America locks up seven times more people now than we did in 1970," actor and RepresentUs Cultural Council member Omar Epps says in the opening. "We, as Americans, put more people behind bars than any other nation in the world — both as a percentage of population and in total numbers."
<p>
According to the Institute for Criminal Policy Research's
<a href="https://www.prisonstudies.org/" target="_blank">World Prison Brief</a>, the incarceration rate in the US is .67 percent, followed by El Salvador, Turkmenistan, Thailand, Palau, Rwanda, and Cuba.<br>
</p><p>
The United States also has a prison population of 2.3 million, which is substantially higher than China's 1.6 million, and China has a total population of approximately 1.4 billion people. Epps says if nothing changes oOne in 17 white men will be incarcerated in their lifetime along with one in six Latinos and one in four Black men.
</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>
"And we're putting women in jail even faster than we're locking up men," Epps points out.
<br>
</p><p>
It's important to remember that as incarceration increases, crime rates are dropping. In fact, according to the
<a href="https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=245" target="_blank">Bureau of Justice Statistics</a>, violent crime dropped a staggering 71 percent from 1993 to 2018.
</p><p>
Epps says that while the nation is divided on many things, nearly all Americans agree that the system needs to be fixed. Yet, there is one thing standing in the way of substantive reform: the U.S. political system.<br>
</p><p>
As pointed out in a previous "Unbreaking America"
<a data-linked-post="2641554135" href="https://thefulcrum.us/big-picture/representus-anti-corruption-video" target="_blank">film featuring actor Michael Douglas</a>, no matter how much support something has there is a near zero percent chance that action will be taken by policymakers. Why? Because the incentive structure is skewed. <br>
</p><p>
Members of Congress are not incentivized to address the will of the people, Douglas argues. In fact, according to Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter, there is <a href="https://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/Documents/why-competition-in-the-politics-industry-is-failing-america.pdf" target="_blank">virtually zero correlation</a> between acting on the will of voters and politicians getting re-elected. This is because the political system is controlled by private, gain-seeking organizations and entities that act out of their own self-interest. </p><p>
The latest film, which also features prominent voting rights activist Desmond Meade, points to a number of incentives that are outweighing the interests of voters:<br>
</p><ul class="ee-ul">
<li>The private, for-profit prison industry, which incarcerates 10 percent of U.S. prisoners and nearly three-quarters of immigrant detainees, spent $64 million in the last 10 years lobbying Congress for stricter laws, longer sentences and stronger enforcement policies, while they make $6 billion in revenue annually.</li>
<li>Many judges are elected by voters, and have been shown to give harsher sentences around election time. In areas that use partisan primaries to elect judges, the incentive structure is even worse because to keep their seat they have to appeal to a small partisan base.</li>
<li>As much as 60 percent of political donations for key judicial positions come from "lawyers, lobbyists, and business interests."</li>
<li>Corporations use inmates as practically free labor instead of hiring paid workers. After the BP oil spill, for instance, inmates were used to clean up the mess. They paid inmates pennies on the dollar and qualified for a $2,400 tax kickback for every inmate used.</li>
</ul><p>
(RepresentUs sources all of this information in the video.)<br>
</p><p>
"It's going to be hard to fix the problems," Meade explains, "unless we first fix America's corrupt political system."
<br>
</p><p>
Meade, who rose to prominence in the democracy reform movement by leading efforts to restore felons' voting rights in Florida, says this means "banning lobbyist gifts to politicians, closing the revolving door between Congress and industry," and enfranchising more voters "so politicians actually represent us." He says all of these ideas are part of one proposed that RepresentUs is encouraging, primarily at the state and local levels.<br>
</p><p>
The
<a href="https://anticorruptionact.org/whats-in-the-act/" target="_blank">American Anti-Corruption Act</a> not only has broad support across the political spectrum, but it has policy proposals to stop political bribery, end secret money, change the elections systems (its proposals include open primaries, vote-at-home options, term limits. and ranked-choice voting), and strengthen enforcement of anti-corruption laws already on the books.<br>
</p><p>"Let's be honest, America is facing a crisis and we need to act with an urgency commensurate to the severity of the problem," says Epps. "That's on you, it's on me, it's on all of us." <br></p><p>
Epps breaks down the choice before voters as he closes out the video:
<br>
</p><p>
"Here's the bottom line: Nearly every issue that matters to you, or that matters to the next generation of Americans, is blocked by our corrupt political system, and if you do nothing or if I do nothing, nothing is going to change. But if each of us does something, we can win. Together."
<br>
</p><p>
<em>Visit </em><a href="https://ivn.us/" target="_blank"><em>IVN.us</em></a><em> for more coverage from Independent Voter News.</em>
</p>
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