Reply #6: San Diego mayoral race fallout promotes election change [View All]

[dzika]

March 15, 2005

San Diego mayoral race fallout promotes election change

By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer

About 5,500 San Diego write-in votes were tossed out in November's tight mayoral election because the voters forgot to color in a little bubble on their ballot.

State lawmakers took the first step Tuesday to change election law to require that voters' intent be honored where possible.

The bill by Assemblyman Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, was approved by the Assembly elections committee, 4-1, after election officials rejected 5,551 write-in votes for San Diego mayoral candidate Donna Frye. His bill would require officials to count write-in votes if it is clear a voter intended to vote for a particular candidate but didn't fully comply with voting instructions.

Frye lost because too many voters wrote in her name but neglected to also darken an optical-scan bubble next to the write-in blank on the ballot.

Meanwhile, a bill that would link the nation's four most populous states in a pact to change the way electoral votes are counted in presidential elections fell a single vote short in the same committee.

The author, Assemblyman Bill Maze, R-Visalia, plans to try again at a future committee hearing.

His bill would eliminate California's winner-take-all system of distributing Electoral College votes, dividing them instead among presidential candidates based on their share of the popular vote.

more here