Huge ballot awaiting California voters

[RandySF]

Voters are in store for another thick November ballot -- one that will offer up more statewide initiatives than IHOP has pancake dishes.

With California Secretary of State Alex Padilla certifying 17 ballot measures late last week -- the most for any election since March 2000, when the state's voters grappled with 20 measures -- local residents can expect to cast upward of five double-sided pages worth of votes and receive election guides that could number more than 200 pages, said Joe Canciamilla, Contra Costa County's election chief.

"The ballot is just going to be a nightmare," he said.

As voters labor over questions about legalizing marijuana, eliminating the death penalty and making adult film actors wear condoms during sex, studies show that nearly 1 in 10 of them will likely give up before making it to the raft of local races, including a $3 billion BART bond measure.

And many more will find themselves nixing initiatives they never had the time to grasp, said Shaun Bowler, a ballot measure expert at UC Riverside.

"The conventional wisdom is the more propositions you have, the more 'no' voting you get because people say, 'I don't want to take the time to figure this out,' " he said.


http://www.mercurynews.com/elections/ci_30090176/election-2016-daunting-ballot-awaiting-california-voters

[frazzled]

1. If I lived in California

I'd work to get an initiative on the ballot to prohibit ballot initiatives. Really.

[LoverOfLiberty]

5. Direct Democracy isn't bad

except when it is.

[moonscape]

2. My solution (which isn't one) for years

has been to not vote for any initiatives.

The last straw was when my housekeeper arrived one Tuesday, ballot in hand, and asked me to tell her how she should vote because she didn't understand them.

Of course we can't understand the ramifications of most of them. That's what we hire representatives for, representatives we can vote in or out. It's bad enough we have people willing to vote for a know-nothing, and worse, Trump. But putting complex legislation before people for a vote?

No thanks!

[Hekate]

3. It is the stupidest feature ever in the Calif constitution. That and term limits.

Just DO THE JOB WE SENT YOU TO SACRAMENTO TO DO!

[oasis]

8. No initiative, no state lottery.

[Retrograde]

4. My default vote is No

unless the people putting the measure on the ballot make a very convincing argument. Exception: I'll vote for most bond measures.

When I moved here from New York back in 1976 I though people-driven initiatives were a good idea, something I had never seen back east. Now the only ballot measure petition I'll sign is one that abolishes the state legislature, since the voters are expected to do their jobs. If you actually take the time to read the text of the propositions you'll find they often say something quite different than what the brief summaries or ads imply.

[LoverOfLiberty]

6. Direct Democracy is a way

for the people to enact legislation when the legislature won't. Marijuana legalization is a good example that most of us support. Same sex marriage prohibition is an example most of us don't support.

[moonscape]

7. II thought they started writing some of them so that a 'no' vote

accomplishes the objective.

I'm an educated person, but there is no way I can know the implications of so many initiatives. And I agree, if we are expected to do their job, their salaries need to come to us for all the work it would take to make even a semi-informed decision.

[Brother Buzz]

9. Any word on any Republican wedge issue propositions designed to increase the idiot voter turnout?