Maybe the difficulty is that the terms "primary election", "General
Municipal Election", etc. are more terms of art or practical local
application that of dictionary definition. There seems to be ample evidence
to support the notion that the system is whatever a jurisdiction wished to
call it. That, of course, makes communications between jurisdictions
difficult. These are all matter of local concern. As a matter of fact, there
is one statewide office - Superintendent of Public Instruction - which is
non-partisan but appears on the same ballot as the Governor and other
partisan elections. Thus, there is a primary and a general election for this
office. The difference, however, is that if a candidate for this office
receives a simple majority of the votes in the primary there is no run-off
(er, general election). That does not apply to the partisan offices on the
same ballot. I think it's all a matter of that with which we are accustomed.
I'm sure there are those in Florida who will tell you there elections
administration is better than anyone else's, while those of us in California
wonder why they don't simply adopt our statutes and regulations. After all,
we dealt with the hanging chad problem more than 20 years ago. As far as the
different elections dates are concerned, in most cases those elections are
administered by the local city clerk, and not the county. This creates a
patchwork of procedures and regulations that can be confusing to those of us
who have to run campaigns. But the voters in each city know only their own
way. Further complicating the matter in California is the fact that "Charter
Cities" and "general law" cities are bound by a different set of rules.
General Law cities operate completely under the state election code and
other state elections statutes. Charter Cities are able to make different
rules. Los Angeles is an example of this run amok. By simple executive
ruling by a deputy city clerk, candidates for L.A. City office are permitted
to use ballot titles that are prohibited by the state election code and even
by the city's own election code. The only recourse available to a competing
candidate is to go to court. Also, the state election code permits campaigns
to run absentee voter programs that have applications for absentee ballots
returned to the campaign, which must turn them in to elections officials
within 48 hours. L.A. City passed an ordinance prohibiting the return of
applications to campaign headquarter. I light of all this, I think we can
see why election law is an expanding field. In California these days, a
campaign of any significant size needs to have an attorney (specializing in
elections law) on retainer.
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Johnson-Weinberger" <proportionalrepresentation@msn.com>
To: "Larry Levine" <larrylevine@earthlink.net>;
<election-law@majordomo.lls.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 9:20 AM
Subject: Re: No primary for a non-partisan race
Hi Larry (and everyone),
Aren't these Southern California cities just wrong to call the first round
of a non-partisan election a primary?
Illinois calls non-partisan races the General Municipal Election and the
Supplementary Runoff (February 25 / April 1), at least for Chicago (which
is
now non-partisan).
Do the city charters spell out the different names of the different
election
rounds or does state law govern any of that?
That's also interesting that cities are under no obligation to hold their
elections on the same day. I wonder if that makes election administration
in
LA County easier or more difficult.
Thanks for the insight,
Dan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Levine" <larrylevine@earthlink.net>
To: "Dan Johnson-Weinberger" <djw@fairvote.org>;
<election-law@majordomo.lls.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: No primary for a non-partisan race
Cities in California, all of which hold non-partisan elections,
frequently
call their first round the primary and then have a run off. Some have
only
one round and it's winner-take-all, plurality. Burbank, for instance,
will
have a "Primary Nominating Election" on Feb. 25, 2003 and a "Burbank
City
General Election" on April 8. Inglewood, on the other hand, will have a
"General Municipal" election on April 1 and an "Inglewood City General
Runoff" on June 3. The City of Los Angeles lists a "City Primary
Nominating
Election" for March 4 and a "Los Angeles City General Election" for May
20.
Municipal non-partisan elections do not allow candidates to list
partisan
affiliations on the ballot, while the chamber proposal would include
partisan affiliations. Seems to me this chamber thing may be some kind
of
hybrid that doesn't fit any existing (California) model and thus would
not
fit any existing terminology.
Larry Levine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Johnson-Weinberger" <proportionalrepresentation@msn.com>
To: <election-law@majordomo.lls.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 4:54 PM
Subject: No primary for a non-partisan race
This is an interesting discussion on terminology. I've found that many
people call the first-round of a non-partisan election a 'primary'
while
they call the runoff election the 'general' election. It sounds like
the
Chamber proposal is generating similar terminology which Richard is
right
to
criticize.
There is no such thing as a non-partisan primary election.
The only type of primary election is a partisan election, restricted
to
some
degree to members of a political party.