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Once again, California is having a strange and stupid election. If you're a California voter, or if you're not but are aware of this situation, I would like your opinion on an element of the vote to recall Governor Gavin Newsom.
To catch up anyone who isn't aware of this idiotic situation, our governor Gavin Newsom pissed off basically everyone this last year for a multitude of reasons I won't bore you with. (Me included. I voted for him and regretted it.) However, on a scale of US governors, he's not that bad. Honestly we could do a lot worse. And we might be about to do a lot worse.
Republicans launched a recall effort in an attempt to replace him with a Republican. This succeeded, and we're going to have a special election on September 14 to determine whether or not we'll vote him out. Here is where things get really weird.
There are two questions on the ballot. One is "Should Governor Newsom be recalled? Yes/No."
This part is straightforward. I'm voting "No, do not recall him." So should you, no matter how much you dislike him. We'll have a chance to vote for someone better (please God) in the regular governor election in 2022.
The next question is "If Governor Newsom is recalled, who should replace him?" Then there's a list of candidates. You can leave this part blank or vote for one of them, regardless of how you voted on the first question.
Here comes the fucking insane part. If Newsom is recalled, whoever gets the most votes on the second question becomes governor. So if 51% of Californians vote to recall Newsom, and the candidate with the most votes only gets, say, 18% of their total votes because the votes were spread out among the other candidates or most people didn't vote for another candidate at all, Mr. 18% is now governor of California.
WHAT THE FUCK, CALIFORNIA??? WHY CAN'T THE RECALL BE ITS OWN VOTE, AND THEN HOLD ANOTHER ELECTION IF AND ONLY IF HE LOSES?
The other candidates doing best in polls are Republican Larry Elder, a Trumpist radical right-wing radio host, and Kevin Paffrath, the only Democrat getting any traction at all, a landlord vlogger with with no political experience.
Republicans are unsurprisingly very excited about voting in this election. Democrats are unsurprisingly not. Lots of people don't understand how this election works, because it's so fucking bizarre. Newsom is polling badly and may well be replaced by one of these jokers.
My question is this. Like I said, I'm voting no. But should I leave the second question blank, or should I hold my nose and vote for Paffrath on the basis that he's less bad than Elder?
Newsom and the CA Democratic Party is advising everyone to leave the question blank. But since the questions are independent of each other, what's the advantage of doing so?
ETA: via AP: Cox has sought to gain attention by campaigning with a 1,000-pound Kodiak bear, which he said represented the need for “beastly” changes in the state.
To catch up anyone who isn't aware of this idiotic situation, our governor Gavin Newsom pissed off basically everyone this last year for a multitude of reasons I won't bore you with. (Me included. I voted for him and regretted it.) However, on a scale of US governors, he's not that bad. Honestly we could do a lot worse. And we might be about to do a lot worse.
Republicans launched a recall effort in an attempt to replace him with a Republican. This succeeded, and we're going to have a special election on September 14 to determine whether or not we'll vote him out. Here is where things get really weird.
There are two questions on the ballot. One is "Should Governor Newsom be recalled? Yes/No."
This part is straightforward. I'm voting "No, do not recall him." So should you, no matter how much you dislike him. We'll have a chance to vote for someone better (please God) in the regular governor election in 2022.
The next question is "If Governor Newsom is recalled, who should replace him?" Then there's a list of candidates. You can leave this part blank or vote for one of them, regardless of how you voted on the first question.
Here comes the fucking insane part. If Newsom is recalled, whoever gets the most votes on the second question becomes governor. So if 51% of Californians vote to recall Newsom, and the candidate with the most votes only gets, say, 18% of their total votes because the votes were spread out among the other candidates or most people didn't vote for another candidate at all, Mr. 18% is now governor of California.
WHAT THE FUCK, CALIFORNIA??? WHY CAN'T THE RECALL BE ITS OWN VOTE, AND THEN HOLD ANOTHER ELECTION IF AND ONLY IF HE LOSES?
The other candidates doing best in polls are Republican Larry Elder, a Trumpist radical right-wing radio host, and Kevin Paffrath, the only Democrat getting any traction at all, a landlord vlogger with with no political experience.
Republicans are unsurprisingly very excited about voting in this election. Democrats are unsurprisingly not. Lots of people don't understand how this election works, because it's so fucking bizarre. Newsom is polling badly and may well be replaced by one of these jokers.
My question is this. Like I said, I'm voting no. But should I leave the second question blank, or should I hold my nose and vote for Paffrath on the basis that he's less bad than Elder?
Newsom and the CA Democratic Party is advising everyone to leave the question blank. But since the questions are independent of each other, what's the advantage of doing so?
ETA: via AP: Cox has sought to gain attention by campaigning with a 1,000-pound Kodiak bear, which he said represented the need for “beastly” changes in the state.
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Yes, it's a shitshow.
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Probably the party is gambling that if Newsom loses his office through this clown-like process, a Republican clown will then galvanize the Democratic base and piss everyone else off in time for the next real election.
I am dubious as to the validity of having the replacement election question on the same ballot, this is essentialy re-litigating the election that put Newsom in there; there is a Lieutenant Governor whose job it literally is to step in.
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I think not putting a legit candidate on the ballot was an attempt to ensure that everyone would vote to retain Newsom, gambling that if there was a decent candidate everyone would vote for them, but not if it was a clown car full of Trumpets and Angelyne. Failure mode: CA gets thrown to either a Trumpist or a clown. That strategy just makes me dislike Newsom and the CA Democratic party leadership even more.
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If I was there, I would vote NO on recall and then vote for the most viable Dem candidate on the second part. Besides the public health measures, one thing that could happen is that Feinstein dies and the crazy GOP replacement Gov appoints her replacement.
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Thanks for the explanation. I do think they're making a new, exciting mistake, but at least it's better-motivated than I had surmised.
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Since that is probably too outré to work, vote for the Kodiak bear? Since the whole thing's a joke, make the joke.
The only excuse for the election at all is the Rs gaming the system, so they have to game it to include the line-up of replacements or they don't get a prize anyway. I'm wondering now why the Dems wouldn't put Lt Gov Kounalakis on the replacement ballot, as someone presumably qualified and up-to-speed already. Is there some procedural problem? Do the decision-makers think she'd look "too much" like Kamala Harris, and if so, what's wrong with following up on a winner?
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That's not how it works. If Newsom is recalled, even by a single vote, and everyone but one person leaves the second question blank, then whoever that one person voted for is now governor.
As far as I can tell, the Democratic leadership chose not to put a legit candidate on the ballot to blackmail voters into voting to retain Newsom.
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I was a CA voter for the Gray Davis recall. Such a sh*tshow.
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I'm sorry you're in a situation that's Differently Bad. Aargh.
Edit: And I also would vote for the clown just as a countervote against the other guy. He cannot POSSIBLY be worse than a hard-right Republican getting in.
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I agree, I'm going to have to vote for Paffrath unless someone else emerges as a Democratic frontrunner.
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ETA: I highly doubt he'd win the primary in the extremely unlikely scenario that he did ascend to the governorship. I certainly wouldn't vote for him.
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Well... if he wins, the most likely outcome is we won't have any actual leadership until the next election while he runs around making vlogs and trying to get the National Guard to harass homeless people. Great time for that! However, Larry Elder would be actively doing actual damage.
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America has an allergy to ranked choice.
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So basically our primaries and general elections are going to be ranked choice, and the next round of elections will be the first time we'll test it out. I'm really curious what it's going to be like.
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"But since the questions are independent of each other, what's the advantage of doing so?"
I hadn't realized the terms of this ballot were so opaque. Now I kind of hope lots of your fellow Californians read your blog and will be enlightened.
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Re: "But since the questions are independent of each other, what's the advantage of doing so?"
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Re: "But since the questions are independent of each other, what's the advantage of doing so?"
I'd amend the "vote for the least-bad candidate" advice though: given that it's first-past-the-post rather than ranked choice, I'd suggest voting for the least-bad candidate *that a sufficiently large number of other people will also think is a least-bad candidate*. Ie there's no point voting for the least-bad candidate if they'll only get 1% of the votes; in that case you want to vote for the second-least-bad candidate who'll get a good chunk of the votes.
Definitely vote for someone though. There's literally no advantage not to, the official position is simply wrong.
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Hold your nose and vote for the least awful option, do not leave it blank.
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(OMGWTFBBQ indeed.)
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This is TERRIBLE strategy. I'm not a Californian and I'm not a strategist, but telling people not to vote on the second question is a grotesque move, one that could result in people dying. The halfway reasonable move would have been to have Eleni Kounalakis file to run as the official recall candidate: if 50.01% of Californians want to jettison Newsom, then the obvious replacement to offer is his lieutenant governor, who would take over if tomorrow he got run over by a bus, and "vote 'no' on the recall, then vote for the current lieutenant governor" (assuming that's allowed) would be the obvious ninja move.
(It looks like she'd be allowed. According to this FAQ I found, replacement candidates "must meet legal qualifications and requirements to run for the office of Governor. A candidate must: be a U.S. citizen; be a California registered voter and otherwise qualified to vote for that office at the time nomination papers are issued; not have been convicted of a felony involving accepting or giving, or offering to give, any bribe, the embezzlement of public money, extortion or theft of public money, perjury, or conspiracy to commit any of those crimes; and not have served two terms in the office since November 6, 1990. (Cal. Const., art V, § 2; Elec. Code, §§ 20, 201)" -- there's nothing here saying that you cannot file to run as a replacement candidate while serving as Lt. Governor.
I read somewhere that the plan is that if he polls badly, to pressure Newsom to resign, allowing the Lt. Governor to take over and rendering the recall moot. He's sure polling pretty fucking badly!!!
Dear California: YOUR SYSTEM IS BATSHIT. Dear California Democratic Party: DEAR GOD WHY ARE YOU SO INCOMPETENT. Dear People of California: You should vote no on the recall, and vote for whichever Democrat appears to have the most traction on Q2, and SHAME on the party leadership for trying to convince you to put yourselves in the hands of any fucking Republican right now of all times.
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He'll absolutely do good stuff if it helps him politically, which is why I voted for him. It wasn't a strong field and I thought the issues likely to come up would be the sort of thing he'd enjoy grandstanding about to the benefit of all. This actually worked in many cases. But RIGHT HERE we have the failure mode.
Larry Elder would be a catastrophe. You want California to look like Florida? He would be happy to do his best to make it happen.
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I think anyone should be able to get into public office, but I feel like governor of any state, much less California, is something you should work up to, and none of these people seem to have any relevant experience...
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Though my memory of her politics (from several decades ago) was that there would be worse options on the ballot. (Okay, also based on the LAST time we did the stupid recall election dance.)
(Recall system still not quite as bad as the proposition system. Both are what happens when the people originally setting up the rules are populists who don't really trust government and who also don't actually think through what their rules mean. That said, recall should absolutely be 'recall, yes/no', and then treat the second question like a primary and have a run off of the top 2. And the Lieutenant Gov. can run things in between.)
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Which did remind me that if you think the current list is bad, last time there were 135 candidates.
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Anyway...I'm really eh on picking the "YouTube landlord influencer" as the Dem backup. I checked CalMatters and there was one guy endorsing...Gray Davis as the backup? The only other guy to get recalled?
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ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH.
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https://calimac.dreamwidth.org/1067570.html