Voter Registration Up in California

Joe Mathews — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:08:00 -0400

At least that's the raw numbers from the Secretary of State's office show. The state's population of adults eligible to votes is also growing, so it's hard to know if there's a percentage gain. But Democratic numbers are up -- though their percentage of total voters is even. Republicans continue to lose voters -- in both absolute and percentage terms. The party has done this to itself--by preventing decline to state voters from taking Republican ballots, the GOP is pushing people to the Democrats. And "decline to states" -- that's California for independent -- continue to grow. They're now nearly 20 percent of all voters.

A Rare Conviction of a Signature Gatherer

Joe Mathews — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:42:00 -0400

Here's a news release from the California Secretary of State of a very rare event: the conviction of a signature gatherer in San Joaquin County. The crime in this case? Attempting to register a fictitious voter. There are laws on signature gatherers, and several states are trying to regulate the petition trade. But it's dangerous ground because almost everything signature gatherers do is political speech in some form.