The basic rationale, I suppose, is a desire to allow the incumbent’s – Davis’ – supporters the opportunity to both vote for Davis but still have their preference between alternative candidates counted in the event that Davis loses, i.e., they need not “throw away their vote”, as do third-party voters in a presidential race. In this sense, the recall voting method works to Davis’ advantage; although some argue that it disfavors Davis because he must gain a majority (> 50%) to win, whereas alternative candidates need only a plurality. (With hundreds of candidates, a plurality could theoretically be less than 1%.) In either case, why bias the voting procedure for or against Davis? I think it’s a good idea to allow Davis’ supporters to have their alternative preferences counted, but why not make it work the same for all candidates? For example, suppose I’m an average Republican and my voting preference is for either of two leading Republican candidates who are running against a single front-runner Democrat. If my first choice (whom I might have chosen by the toss of a coin) loses, why should I not also (like Davis’ supporters) have my runner-up preference counted? What I would really like is for my ballot to effectively say “I want either one of these two Republican candidates elected – which one, I don’t care; I just know that I don’t want any of those other characters on the ballot to win.” What would probably actually happen in this scenario is that the Republicans’ vote would be split between their two leading candidates and the election would go to the front-runner Democrat, even though a clear majority may prefer a Republican (any Republican) over the Democrat.

(1) Do you want Davis to continue as governor?

(2) If Davis loses, which one of the hundreds of alternative candidates do you want to take over?

Usually in an election between mutually exclusive alternatives the voter is simply asked to make one choice between the options. For example, in a presidential election you’re not asked “Do you want Clinton – the incumbent – re-elected; and second, if he loses, what is your preference between Bush, Nader, etc.?” So what rationale did the CA legislature have (back in 1911) in setting up the recall election this way, as a two-part question, and does this make sense? I want to address this question because it leads to some very fundamental issues at the heart of our democratic institutions.

The basic rationale, I suppose, is a desire to allow the incumbent’s – Davis’ – supporters the opportunity to both vote for Davis but still have their preference between alternative candidates counted in the event that Davis loses, i.e., they need not “throw away their vote”, as do third-party voters in a presidential race. In this sense, the recall voting method works to Davis’ advantage; although some argue that it disfavors Davis because he must gain a majority (> 50%) to win, whereas alternative candidates need only a plurality. (With hundreds of candidates, a plurality could theoretically be The recall election ballot will present the voter two questions, in essence:

(1) Do you want Davis to continue as governor?

(2) If Davis loses, which one of the hundreds of alternative candidates do you want to take over?

Usually in an election between mutually exclusive alternatives the voter is simply asked to make one choice between the options. For example, in a presidential election you’re not asked “Do you want Clinton – the incumbent – re-elected; and second, if he loses, what is your preference between Bush, Nader, etc.?” So what rationale did the CA legislature have (back in 1911) in setting up the recall election this way, as a two-part question, and does this make sense? I want to address this question because it leads to some very fundamental issues at the heart of our democratic institutions.

The basic rationale, I suppose, is a desire to allow the incumbent’s – Davis’ – supporters the opportunity to both vote for Davis but still have their preference between alternative candidates counted in the event that Davis loses, i.e., they need not “throw away their vote”, as do third-party voters in a presidential race. In this sense, the recall voting method works to Davis’ advantage; although some argue that it disfavors Davis because he must gain a majority (> 50%) to win, whereas alternative candidates need only a plurality. (With hundreds of candidates, a plurality could theoretically be

The above split-vote scenario illustrates a fundamental flaw in our democracy: In a plurality vote with more than two alternatives, the election result doesn�t necessarily represent the clear will of the majority; it may simply indicate which political constituency has the fewest viable alternatives to choose from. The phenomenon is evident in presidential elections. For example, consider the following presidential vote results:

1992 Perot 18.9%, Bush 37.4%, Clinton 43.0%
1998 Nader 2.7%, Gore 48.4%, Bush 47.9% (but Bush wins electoral college by a hair line)

In each case, how do you think the election would have turned out if third-party voters had not “thrown away their votes”, and chose instead to voice their preference between the Democrat/Republican contenders? (And how many actually made that choice, masking their true preference?) We have a two-party system for the basic reason that our simple-minded �one-man-one-vote� system does not work when there are more than two viable options on the ballot. If you bring in a third party on the liberal side, it splits the vote on the left and the election goes to the Republicans. Bring in a third party on the conservative side, and the seesaw tilts toward the Democrats. Considering the destabilizing effect of a third party in a presidential race, it’s evident that in a race with hundreds of contenders chaos will reign. (Some people seem to welcome chaos as some sort of “flowering of democratic expression”; I don’t.)

So how can you reasonably ascertain voter preference in a 3-way (or 300-way) election? Actually, it’s quite simple. The CA legislature had the right idea in allowing voters to express their preference for or against Davis independently of their preference for any other candidate; the idea just needs to be carried a step further. Basically, the question that the ballot poses to the voter needs to be slightly re-worded: Instead of asking the voter which (single) one of the hundreds of candidates (including Davis) is the most acceptable, the ballot should instead simply ask the voter which candidate or candidates are acceptable. The question does not presume that the voter has a single clear of preference of a single candidate over all others – they may vote their approval for as many candidates as they wish. The candidate with the most votes (i.e., the one who is acceptable to the most voters) wins.

This “approval voting” method is similar to the current recall election procedure, except that instead of just treating just Davis specially, it effectively gives the same special treatment to all candidates in the sense that it is equivalent to asking a separate question for each candidate,

(1) Would you approve of Davis as governor?
(2) Would you approve of Schwarzenegger as governor?
(3) Would you approve of Bustamante as governor?
etc.

Voters who have a clear preference for one political party, but no strong preference between their party’s candidates, would vote their approval for all acceptable candidates, thereby eliminating the “split vote” syndrome. Third-party voters would not be “throwing away their vote”; the presence of third parties would not destabilize the election process; and the process would no longer impede third parties from gaining true political representation.

Approval voting seems so simple, so rational, and so common-sense – so why hasn’t it caught on? Probably because the average guy on the street has never heard of it or doesn�t understand it. Hopefully the recall election will give the press, polling organizations, and civics educators the opportunity and the motivation to bring these issues to the forefront of public attention and catalyze the political will to upgrade our outmoded, irrational electoral system.

Ken Johnson

Thanks for your over-view, jn, and rationalizations of attacks on well meaning, good hearted men, while the evil-doers cloud the meaningful issues. I happened to have loved the protections FDR and other decent men provided for us. Its back to the money flowing too freely for war only, a not any peace making, that creates the bigger problems I see brewing right now. Perhaps its always been this way and will be ever-more. I for one will fight and demand to follow values that are quite different, however. Dennis is the only one who will persevere and not negotiate with people who don’t consider everyone in the solution. Politics just isn’t much fun most of the time…it’s time it became so. People are important- and Dennis knows this. Power to the people-someday, someway.

Having said all that, Davis entered his first term with a $9 billion budget surplus and great credit. The energy crisis, and the State’s move to become a necessary player in the market burned off around $12 billion on the low side. What that means is that the surplus was largely consumed, irrespective of any attempts to recover the funds through rate increases and legal action. What that does NOT explain is the fiscal deficit that the State came into the current budget cycle with, $38 billion. Even as we enter the new fiscal year we are assured that $9 billion of deficit is waiting for us next year. Our state credit rating is slightly above junk, because the Street does not have confidence in the state governments ability to fix structural problems on the revenue side, or control spending that has consistently risen faster then revenues (and faster than inflation) on the expense side. Bottom line, anyone that thinks Davis’ problems are solely because of the energy crisis is naive. The Governor is guilty of gross financial mismanagement, and while not crimminal by any stretch, it’s enough to warrant his removel from office.

And it is the people who call themselves Republicans that are the problem- to you, me and the constitution. You’re buying the smoke screen so the same old stuff goes on, and on and on…

You may want to dig a little deeper, like reading:
“Californians have found the solution to the deregulation disaster: re-call the only governor in the nation with the cojones to stand up to the electricity price fixers. And unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gov. Gray Davis stood alone against the bad guys without using a body double. Davis called Reliant Corp of Houston a pack of “pirates” –and now he’ll walk the plank for daring to stand up to the Texas marauders.”

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=257&row=1

Read more, feel more, care more, think more jn.

latest Field poll of 1,000+ respondants (60% registered voters, the rest “likely to vote”) show that 27% of registered Democrats will vote to recall Davis, with another 6% undecided. Latino voters back the recall 55 to 35%, despite Davis’ pandering to that block by signing the law this week that allows illegal immigrants to get drivers licenses… the same law he vetoed last year and said it would make it easier for terrorists to get identification cards. 59% of independent voters in the State favor recalling Davis, that’s a huge number in an important block of voters. 23% of polled Democrats think he should just resign now.

Also, to show how little effect Davis has on the Democratic party, it appears that Senator Lieberman isn’t even aware that he’s been governor for almost 5 years when he said it was a terrible idea to throw someone out of office in the first year because of unpopularity.

By the way, I think the last day to register for the Oct. recall is Sept. 22.