A few questions about elections

BY CHERI RAE
I love the act of voting — walking to my polling place in the library at Santa Barbara High School. I like chatting with the poll workers, and casting my ballot. It makes me feel like my voice matters, my beliefs count. It’s the essence of participatory democracy and I never miss an election. I sport my “I voted” flag sticker with pride.

That voter’s pride turned to bitterness in the days following the 2000 election as uncertainty reigned. For weeks, the spectacle of questionable counting techniques and rampant confusion over butterfly ballots, hanging, dimpled and pregnant chads left me stunned and skeptical forevermore about the legitimacy of our Federal elections. The traumatic experience marked the end of innocence for many who had previously believed simply that votes counted, and were untouched by political trickery.
I never imagined I’d end up feeling queasy about a local election.
It was on the Fourth of July, of all days, when a casual acquaintance stopped by to chat about the November election. This person, who has worked at the County elections office for many elections, expressed serious concerns and real reservations about the ability of the City to run its own election. I hadn’t heard a thing about the issue, I revealed. “It just happened yesterday,” this person said, “You just watch, it’s going to be a mess. Plus they’re trying to get another year in office for themselves. Why don’t you know anything about this?”
Why, indeed. Until that moment, I really hadn’t given much thought at all to the fall elections, and I simply assumed that the elected County Registrar of Voters would be responsible for running local elections, as has been the case since well before I moved here nearly twenty years ago.
Turns out the City of Santa Barbara is running the election—for the first time since anyone can remember, ostensibly to save money. The City Council unanimously voted to budget $300,000 to run the election with the services of the venerable Martin & Chapman Company of Anaheim. The election services company will bring in its own machines, conduct the counting, and use the California Secretary of State-approved and certified Opto-Mark voting system with an optically scanned ballot card.
Also turns out that the City of Santa Barbara has filed suit against the County of Santa Barbara over election costs. It was scheduled to be heard this morning in a Ventura County courtroom, but it was reported yesterday that the suit was settled out of court.
The election costs for the November 2003 election? $302,722.10 — just a couple thousand dollars more than they’re spending on next month’s local election. There’s something unsettling to me about this apparently unprecedented action — one that completely escaped the attention of everyone I know. Couldn’t the City and County have worked this issue out without resorting to a lawsuit? How much is this legal matter costing taxpayers in legal fees? And why isn’t there any information about this matter easily accessible on our City’s website?
On November 6, the counting of the ballots will be televised from City Hall on Channel 18, so we can observe the proceedings. Still, there’s something about counting votes for City Council in the City Council Chambers within City Hall that’s bothersome. Maybe it’s that nagging question raised about this City-run election contained in the sample ballot statement for Measure A. It advocates returning to County-run elections, “…instead of having City staffers in charge of counting the votes for their own City Council bosses.” Whaaat?
I thought it was certified city clerks and voting consultants who would be counting the votes; this published comment raises the specter of the November 2000 nightmare once more. That statement is either a nasty insult to our city employees that also casts aspersions on the integrity of our City Council members, or a blatant scare tactic that has nothing whatsoever to do with the measure at hand. In either case, it’s inappropriate—and it raises questions in my mind about the rest of the “facts” contained in the argument.
And there’s the hotly contested issue of Measure A (full disclosure: my husband, John McKinney, is one of the signatories on the Argument Against Measure A). Setting aside the arguments for another time, let’s look at placement instead. Every editor knows the far-left position in a spread is the least likely to be read. In a clever little layout and design trick, that’s exactly the position of the Argument Against Measure A on the sample ballot. You’ll find it on Page 16, far left.
How much easier it would have been for voters to read and compare the arguments for and against, side by side. But the City didn’t want it designed that way. It placed the City Attorney’s “Impartial Analysis” next to the “Argument in Favor” instead. Nowhere in the “impartial analysis,” by the way, could I find any mention of how eliminating stand-alone elections provides incumbents with an advantage over challengers—the conclusion reached by a 2002 study conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California.
At this particular time in our City’s history, with many citizens expressing serious concerns about the policies and procedures they’ve witnessed firsthand at City Hall, it’s not the best time to be tinkering with our most cherished aspects of civic life.

Cheri Rae’s column appears every Thursday in the Daily Sound. E-mail her at letters@santabarbarafree.com