Voters may face ballot confusion
Rick Orlov
Staff Writer - Los Angeles Daily News
October 26, 2008
For Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, it's the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama that is driving him to the polls.
"This is my first election and I couldn't be more excited," said Spitzer-Rubenstein, 18, who also made calls for the Obama campaign in Los Angeles.
But, other than a couple of other items, he said he was unsure how to vote on all the ballot propositions.
"I know about (Proposition) 8, but a lot of the other ones are pretty confusing," he said. "There's no way anyone can really know about some of the issues that are on the ballot."
It's a dilemma facing all voters, a record number of whom have registered for the Nov. 4 election. When they get inside that voting booth, the nearly 30 races, measures and propositions could lead to information overload.
Enthusiasm over Obama's historic candidacy has swollen voter registration rolls, where in Los Angeles County, more than 4.1 million people are registered. Of them, 451,000 are new voters, half of them ages 18 to 25.
Democrats already held a 51 percent to 25 percent edge over Republicans in Los Angeles, with an additional 20 percent registered as independents. Among new voters, however, 56percent are signing up as Democrats, county elections officials said.
Political analysts expect a dropoff in interest as voters, especially the new ones, make their way down the ballot.
"As a rule, there is always a drop-off regardless of the election," said Republican strategist Allan Hoffenblum. "What happens is people get excited about voting for president and then they get their ballot and they see elections for state senators or assemblymen or the ballot propositions and judges. They don't know any of these people, so they just pass and go to issues they are familiar with."
Bob Stern of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies agreed, saying it is even more difficult for new voters, who often don't even receive campaign mailings because they haven't voted before.
Among the best known statewide ballot measures is Proposition 8, which would ban gay marriage.
"I imagine there will be some people turning out just for that - on both sides," Stern said.
Jaime Regalado of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, said it is always a danger that voters pass on certain items.
"At the same time, you get concerned about people voting when they don't know anything about the people or the issue," he said. "With new voters, both parties hope they just vote a straight Democratic or Republican ticket."
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