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 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]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

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 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)