Dirty Tricks on Life Support

This Dirty Tricks Initiative nail-biter is finally starting to make more sense to me, thanks to Kevin Yamamura at the Sacramento Bee. There is indeed a firm deadline to make the June ballot, January 24. Secretary of State Bowen recommended an early deadline for signatures, because local election boards basically have no time to do all the random counting needed to qualify the initiative between now and then. By missing that deadline the dirty tricksters risk missing the June ballot, as election boards must ramp up for the February 5 primary and that takes priority. The SacBee article is one of the first to inform what's really going on here.

Counties are slammed with duties that include mailing ballots to overseas voters, preparing ballot guides, training poll workers and gearing up for absentee voting that begins Jan. 7. At the same time, many county election offices are juggling staff vacation time around the holidays.

"They're risking it, honestly," Weir said of Gilliard's initiative effort. "They're risking it. They're up against a tidal wave of programming ... You can't miss deadlines when you have a live election going."

Dave Gilliard, now the head trickster for the initiative, again reiterated that he'd push ahead for the November 2008 ballot if his efforts to make the June ballot were unsuccessful. That does not sound like someone who's confident. Not to mention the potential investigation over shenanigans with the signature gathering itself, which could present challenges to the count. I'd say this thing is about 75% done for the June ballot. And in November, it gets slaughtered in a high-turnout Presidential election, PLUS it excites Democrats to go to the polls, helping us in every other race.

Gilliard did not return repeated phone calls Monday, but wrote in an e-mail, "We are still hopeful of making the June ballot but understand we are at the mercy of the calendar."

Yes, you're at the mercy of something.