Holy crap, there's a vote tomorrow.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

CA people, get to the polls tomorrow.

At least, get to the polls if you agree with me. ;)

The ones I care about:

NO on prop 14. Let primaries be what they should be - parties picking their own candidates.

NO on prop 16. Lordy, doesn't anyone pay attention to what's happened to California? Stripping our elected representatives of their power to govern is the PROBLEM.

NO on prop 17. Punishing people for stopping their insurance for whatever reason is f'n lame. There are a million reasons to do so that do not deserve punishment. For instance, they might have had to sell their car and not drive for a while in order to get back on their feet. Also, you can't set "discounts" into law, as they are always offset by higher premiums over time.



I'm still on the fence about prop 15, if only because I like that it taxes lobbyists :evil: but it seems that any offer of campaign money from the gov't never works out, since there's always more money to be made by turning the funds down.

Prop 13 seems ok by me. Again, I'm annoyed that this type of thing just can't be handled by our representatives. Stupid California.

[Not Afraid]

I already voted. I voted yes on 14.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I disagree re: Prop 17. First of all, it doesn't set discount into law, it simply allows a company to offer a discount if they choose to. Secondly, We get a discount through our current insurer because, by proving myself insurable for a long time, I am a lower risk to them. If I were to change providers for whatever reason, they are currently not ALLOWED to offer me a discount, even though they can look at my record and see that I'm low risk. That's an annoying barrier to shopping for competitive insurance rates.

[mousepod]

From the official prop 17 rebuttal:

FACT: Prop 17 is 99% funded by Mercury [insurance company], which was caught “charging discriminatory rates to motorists who were not at fault in accidents, were members of the armed forces or worked in certain professions.” (Los Angeles Times, 2/15/10)

[Ghoulish Delight]

Yes, I am aware of Mercury's involvement. However I still can't see anything wrong with the prop as written.

[Kevy Baby]

Yes, I am aware of Mercury's involvement. However I still can't see anything wrong with the prop as written.The one thing that bugs me about 17 and 16 is that I am concerned with companies being able to "buy" legislation. I won't base my decisions solely on that, but it will weigh heavily.


BTW: if anyone wants to look at the PDF version of the Voter Information Guide, it can be found here: http://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/pdf/english/

(Well, the Engrish version - if you want to read the Tagalog [or other language] version, you will have to click another link.)

[Alex]

It was easy. Clean slate of "No" on all props and I didn't vote for any of the offices since I don't know who any of the people are and don't care to learn.

Prop 13
I'm all in favor of making it easier to trigger property tax reassessments, not harder.

Prop 14
A) If we're going to have political parties then they should be able to determine how they want to pick their nominees. If we don't want parties then declare the elections to be non-partisan and implement an instant run-off mechanism and just hold one election.

B) This is a perfect set up for whichever major party is best able to maintain party discipline to win offices without winning the most support. It's a set up for what happened in Hawaii where two Democrats, either of whom could beat the Republican handily both refused to drop out and let the Republican walk in. Now, with this there's a second vote so that helps but if one party is unable to keep six people from running in the primary you could easily get a choice of two people from the minority party in the final election. So what will be the end result? Primary primaries by the parties to try and make sure only one candidate for the party is in the primary, pushing the process even farther away from when voters actually care.

C) There are way better ways to do this through various instant run-off mechanisms.

D) Yes, most of the time it will probably help make sure that the final two candidates are more moderate but at the cost of eliminating the extremes from the debate. Sure, third parties and fringe candidates will get their chance in the primary (most of the time, see point E) -- when nobody is paying any attention.

E) Eventually this could even eliminate some third party candidates from even being able to run in the primaries. There are two ways for parties to officially get on the ballot: a) maintain a certain percentage of total party registrations, or b) get a certain percentage of the November vote. The Libertarian Party, for example (though it is not the only one) does not meet the first test but always meets the second. Since a Libertarian candidate is unlikely to ever even make it to the November ballot by taking the top two spots, they then would be disqualified from participation in the next primary.

F) You can't even register a protest vote. Write-in candidates votes will not be allowed on the November ballot. So either you vote for one of the two people on there or you vote for nobody.

G) For good or ill (mostly ill) interest in top ticket races drives participation farther down the ballot. When one party dominates the top of a ballot it will have an undue impact on other ballot items due to suppressing the vote by a significant portion of the population (if Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner were the final two then many more liberal people would see no reason to vote at all in that office and then you have to hope that they show up anyway to vote for Proposition X).

Prop 15
Not particularly in favor of public funding of elections. Don't think it is particularly effective even when in place, and while I know it an unpopular opinion I don't particularly support licensing lobbyists so am not inclined to support increasing the licensing fee to pay for things.

Prop 16
Stupid law in my view, example of what's awful about the proposition process.

Prop 17
Can't decide if I thin it is a good idea or not. I find the arguments impenetrable with Mercury winning on the surface. That said, I don't see any reason why this is something that should be done through the proposition process rather than legislatively.


ETA: And I voted three weeks ago. So if any of my reasoning is shown to be faulty let that be an example of why I don't support asynchronous voting. But I do it anyway if the rule is there. I'm a hypocrite.

[Ghoulish Delight]

FYI, here's the full text (http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Text_of_Proposition_17,_the_Continuous_Coverage_Au to_Insurance_Discount_Act_%28California_2010%29) of the prop. I'm not seeing anything in it that does anything more than allow insurance companies to offer a discount to new customers that they weren't allowed to offer before. Whether Mercury will find a way to abuse it or not doesn't seem all that relevant to me. If they're acting fraudulently now and getting away with it, I don't see how preventing this measure from passing would do anything to change that.

[Alex]

Yeah, trying to figure out who Mercury wanting it means people are going to get screwed is more of a side thing.

The fact that I don't think it is appropriate for the proposition process is the main reason I'd vote no (and would even if it could clearly be shown that this is in every way a good idea).

For me to vote yes on a proposition it has to either be:

A) Something that can only be done through proposition; or,
B) A correction of a great moral failing in this state (such as the various gay marriage and civil union votes over the years).

So far as I know, 17 is not A and it definitely isn't B. Me voting yes on a proposition is a high hurdle even if I support the goal.

[Snowflake]

Voted on Friday (last)

[Chernabog]

Please do not vote for Judge Laura Matz if you are in LA. She's a total b!tch. LOL you'd think she'd be nicer to attorneys in an election year but noooooooooo.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I disagree re: Prop 17. First of all, it doesn't set discount into law, it simply allows a company to offer a discount if they choose to. Secondly, We get a discount through our current insurer because, by proving myself insurable for a long time, I am a lower risk to them. If I were to change providers for whatever reason, they are currently not ALLOWED to offer me a discount, even though they can look at my record and see that I'm low risk. That's an annoying barrier to shopping for competitive insurance rates.I think the flaw is that simply having insurance continuously for a long period does not make you lower risk. There are plenty of people who have to have a break in their coverage for legitimate reasons, reasons that do not make them higher risk. They should not have to pay higher premiums for that.

I can understand an insurance company being able to offer a "loyal customer" discount. Yes, that would be a barrier to us to change companies - which is why companies offer loyal customer discounts.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Insurance companies don't offer discounts unless they have reason to believe they will subsequently save money in payouts. Period. If they want to keep people who have unbroken coverage history, it's because, on whole, that group of people costs them less. It doesn't matter WHY any individual might have had a gap. There is no financial gain to them if they keep a bunch of customers by charging them less than average, but pay out at an average rate.

Unless you would like to also ban ANY persistence of coverage discounts, or like Alex disagree with the mechanism of change, "it's not fair to some of the people who might not qualify for the discount" doesn't seem to hold much water. If that's your criteria, than ALL discounts should be banned because one can always find a case where someone who doesn't qualify for a discount is excluded because of reasons that "aren't fair".

The prop doesn't impose a penalty against those that don't have consistent coverage, nor does it demand a discount be applied if the insurance company doesn't want to. All it does is remove a restriction that doesn't seem to make much sense. Do you feel the same about good student discounts? Shouldn't those be banned because some people's low grades are due to circumstances that may have no baring on their driving ability/risk? Or are you okay with the reality that, on average, people with good grades pose a lower risk, regardless of the individual reasons people with bad grades have those bad grades.

[Morrigoon]

I'm actually for Prop 14 - it means that candidates are going to need to lean more to the middle and allow us to help eliminate the "outliers". And probably opens us up to all sorts of dirty games, but what the hell, if it has even a chance of reducing the "two floaters in a bowl" elections... I'm willing to try.

Everything else is a No.

16 is an emphatic No.

[Alex]

So no surprises in the political office elections.

Prop 13: Overwhelming yes. Not a huge issue but well demonstrates the self-contradictory attitude of the citizens in wanting all the services and none of the taxes.

Prop 14: Convincing yes. I think it is a really stupid idea and we can kiss third party conversation goodbye in this state.

Prop 15: Solid no. Carried in the Bay Area but nowhere else.

Prop 16: No. Pretty solid urban rural split on this.

Prop 17: No. I'm guessing most people could give a detailed justification for why they voted no, but simply use their general distrust of insurance companies as a proxy. (Though I voted no as well.)

[BarTopDancer]

Open primaries were on the ballot when I first started voting and it was voted down.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I was upset after reading the election results...then realized I was looking at the OC results, not statewide.

Phew. Why the eff do I live here again??

[Cynthia]

We failed to register in time :(

[Mousey Girl]

I got to my polling place (The Boy's school) around 10. I was only the 21st person who had showed.

I'm not sure what the voter turn out was for Kern County, but it was expected to be in the 20-30% area.

[BarTopDancer]

That was the most uneducated I've ever been at voting time. Luckily I knew who I wanted to vote for for office and my standard vote on props is no.

I thought there was supposed to be a legalize pot prop on the ballot?

[Kevy Baby]

That was the most uneducated I've ever been at voting time. Luckily I knew who I wanted to vote for for office and my standard vote on props is no.Yeah, I had the same feeling. For the first time, I actually skipped voting on a few of the offices :(I thought there was supposed to be a legalize pot prop on the ballot?Its on the November 2, 2010 ballot.

[Alex]

I have no remorse about not voting for specific things if I don't care.

I honestly don't care who is mayor of my town. So I don't vote for it. Same for Seat #3 on the Dippity **** Stream and Management Conservation Regional Tallyhoo Board.

[BarTopDancer]

I only voted for governor, lt governor and the house/senate people. I don't care about local representation.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Yay Gavin Newsom!

[innerSpaceman]

He won for, what primary again? Deputy AG? Lt. Governor? I forget.

I'm just glad the two corporate-shill ballot measures I loathed went down in flames.


But sheesh, even though there was NO ONE at my polling place when I got there, and my name is easy to find as one of the LAST in the alphabet, it took them over 10 minutes to get me my ballot. Not exactly the crack team for the primaries, eh?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Lt. Governor. I still wish he were running for governor, but he was probably smart to step out of the way of the Jerry Brown steamroller.

I was the first in line at my polling place, where apparently most of the workers called in sick. There was only one lady there when I arrived 5 minutes before it opened, a 2nd showed up at 6:59. They announced, 'The poll is open...but we have no idea what we're doing." :rolleyes: It then took about 5 minutes to find my name and get the computer to spit out my #. Hopefully my vote actually counted.

As the first there, I did get to be the one to validate that the ballot box was empty, and then seal it. That was nifty.

[Alex]

Having experienced him somewhat directly as mayor, while I agree that he's on the right side of social issues, I haven't seen anything to make me look forward to him being governor. Between him and Jerry Brown I'd probably take Brown.

Fortunately Lt. Governor don't mean anything so I'm fine with him there. Plus I have to imagine that former mayors of Oakland and San Francisco being #1 and #2 would make tea partiers weep.

[Prudence]

I'm glad to see that the insurance initiative failed. It was a way to jack up rates flavored as a benefit to you. There are so many legitimate reasons for a lapse in coverage - including military service overseas, living in Manhattan for a few years, changing insurance companies and they botch the start date so coverage doesn't overlap. It gives them an opportunity to eliminate the loyalty discount while appearing to extend it. I don't think they would have spent that much money on the campaign if they didn't anticipate that chances to void loyalty and impose "surcharges" weren't going to exceed extensions of loyalty discounts to new customers.

Plus, there are an awful lot of uninsured motorists out there and it sure sucks to get hit by one. If an uninsured driver decides to go legal, this proposition would have been a barrier. I'm not in favor of increasing incentives to forgo insurance.

[Morrigoon]

That was the most uneducated I've ever been at voting time. Luckily I knew who I wanted to vote for for office and my standard vote on props is no.

I thought there was supposed to be a legalize pot prop on the ballot?

No that's going on the November ballot. Like all props ought to until we can do away with this system entirely.

[Kevy Baby]

No that's going on the November ballot.There's an echo in here

Its on the November 2, 2010 ballot.

[€uroMeinke]

There's an echo in here

Only if you're not on ignore

[Alex]

Who are you talking to?

[Morrigoon]

or if I didn't accidentally scroll past you

[Kevy Baby]

or if I didn't accidentally scroll past youUnacceptable. Every one of my posts should be read in careful detail.

[Morrigoon]

And Vogon poetry should be read in great detail in order to appreciate its significance, but... you do so at your peril.

;)