There is some advantage to the voters in having candidates named in a uniform order, by party or in alphabetical order.  There is also a small fairness benefit in rotation.  I find it difficult to get very exercised about the issue.  As Fred says, the California Supreme Court has long required rotation on constitutional grounds.  That strikes me as questionable jurisprudence but still not a big deal.
 
        There is one point, though, that I think should be made.  Rotation, which in California I believe is by Assembly district, but could also be by precinct, is fine.  But some of these e-mails have referred to randomization.  If that means randomization by individual voter, I think it would be a very bad idea.  In California and no doubt in many other places, the state/county sends a sample ballot to voters.  It is important that the sample ballot be the same as the voter will see in the voting booth.  Even if the randomization were set in advance, in which case theoretically the correct sample ballots could be sent to each individual voter, there would still be confusion--for example, when one spouse looks at the other spouse's sample ballot and then sees something different in the voting booth.  Also, campaigns, parties, and others, should have the ability of sending sample ballot type images to voters, which would be difficult if not impossible if randomization were !
 on a voter-by-voter basis.
 
       It may be that no one is proposing this.  But if so, some of the messages have been at best unclear.
 
 
          Best,
 
          Daniel Lowenstein
          UCLA Law School
          405 Hilgard
          Los Angeles, California 90095-1476
          310-825-5148

________________________________

From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu on behalf of FredWooch@aol.com
Sent: Mon 6/26/2006 2:38 PM
To: schotlan@law.georgetown.edu; Rick.Hasen@lls.edu; election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: Re: ballot order and computer touch-screen voting


In a message dated 6/26/2006 2:20:34 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, schotlan@law.georgetown.edu writes:

	Question, on behalf of a Georgian who hopes for a change from their
	ballots' strict alphabetic-order listing--  Do you know of any
	experience, or views, that may be helpful to her point:
	    "Now that we vote entirely on computer touch-screens, I see no
	reason why each ballot couldn't have a different order."
	    I have no info about Georgia's general experience with their
	alphabetic listing, but do know (from earlier exchanges with other
	Georgians) that of their 19 appellate judges, elected statewide, the
	four who first went on the bench by election as opposed to by
	appointment are named Andrews, Barnes, Bernes, and Blackburn

Roy:
 
I haven't looked at the case law for a while, but I know that the California Supreme Court barred alphabetical ordering many years ago, and my recollection is that the federal court cases are split on the issue -- with a few of them barring various fixed-order schemes on equal protection grounds due to the advantage supposedly given to those at the top of the ballot order.  (There has been much social science research and a fair number of judicial opinions relating to that issue.)
 
I am not aware whether Georgia's system has faced legal challenge, but certainly the ease with which the computer screens could presumably be programmed to randomize the order of the names on the ballot should reduce one of the state-proferred countervailing interests for continuing to use the alphabetic ordering.
 
 
Fredric D. Woocher
Strumwasser & Woocher LLP
(310) 576-1233
fwoocher@strumwooch.com