Record Turnout for California Voters on Feb. 5th Primary/ Erica Quevedo

California Secretary of State, Debra Bowen has just released a report regarding the results of the recent February 5th Primary Elections. The report shows that 57.7% of registered voters turned out to vote at the Presidential Primary Elections, this is a little more than 9 million Californians. This is 1.2 million more voters than the previous Presidential primary in March 2000. According to this report this is the highest voter turn out in California since 1980; the all time record was in 1976 when almost 73% of voters turned out. Of the total voters 55.27% were Democrat and 33.93% were Republican. In explanation for the high voter turnout Bowen releases the following statement, “The closeness of the Republican and Democratic contests, and the ability to truly help pick the next presidential nominees, clearly motivated Californians to head to the polls in record numbers for a primary election."

Link: http://www.sacbee.com/749/story/792083.html

L.A. County ballot design went unnoticed for six years/ Ayawo Awanyo

Los Angeles County adopted in March 2002 the ballot design in order to reduce election costs. This ballot used by nonpartisan voters generated tens of thousands uncounted votes in three elections between 2002 and 2006. However, for the February 5 presidential primary, an advocacy group named Courage Campaign decided to fix this issue. A day before the election, this organization warned County registrar-recorder about the defect of the ballot design. In addition, the ballot design constitutes a violation of a state law because it required additional step not required of others. However, a survey conducted after the February 5 presidential primary revealed that around 50,000 nonpartisan votes were not counted. This might adversely affect Senator Barack Obama than Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

Link: www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-vote18feb18,1,497763.story?ctrack=1&cset=true