Burton Watch Offers Revealing Critiques Of The Man Who Would Be CDP Chair

It's been distressing to see the race for CDP chair turn from an election into a coronation, with John Burton lining up institutional support, muscling out the grassroots and forcing his competition to the sidelines. Coming off an historic Presidential election, with the demographics squarely on the side of Democrats and a new generation of activists who have boundless ideas to bring a different organizing philosophy to California, the right chairman of the Party could really leverage the energy and activity into something special, to lay the groundwork for a re-imagining of the political structure. Sadly, the best can be said of Burton is that he's an old workhorse, but there are troubling signs that he is unaware of the changes in modern campaiging, unconcerned with reforming the broken institutions both inside and outside the party, and unable to use the new energy and excitement to any decent ends. It appears that the frenetic organizing outside the party structure may be the only hope for progressives in the near term.

But it could be even worse than that. The new site Burton Watch offers a substantive critique of the former State Senator, with information that every delegate and voting member of the Party ought to know before turning over the reins to this guy. The initial post surveys how Democrats could lose California under this version of leadership:

Because the public instinctively knows that when power and money compete with the public interest, we all suffer. If you’ve ever registered voters or walked precincts for a candidate, you’ve undoubtedly been greeted with this response: “I’m not going to vote because it doesn’t matter. All politicians are the same.” And as the cynicism grows, voter turnout declines and the Decline To State registration escalates -- now approximately 20% of all Californians are registered DTS. So how do we combat the innate distrust that drives a large segment of our population to disengage from political parties and even voting? Well, Obama showed us a part of the solution [...]

When previously disenfranchised voters, minorities, and the young are all flocking to the Democratic Party because we represent a new way, a vision of hope and change, why on earth would we want to take a giant step backwards to the bad old days? And yet that’s exactly what Democrats in California are poised to do this April. The California Democratic Party, instead of rising to meet the challenges of a new millennium with openness and inclusion, is set to reach back to one of the oldest and most entrenched political machines in California history for its leadership.

Enter John Burton, California’s much older version of Rod Blagojevich. There are so many reasons why John Burton is unfit for the role of Party Chair in California, that I’ll be doing a series of posts, each one dedicated to a disqualifying aspect of his background. All of the material I’ll be using has been obtained through basic use of the google, and the state’s Republicans could easily find and use it against California Democrats. And trust me, they will.

At the end of this series, I think you’ll agree that John Burton is the wrong person to lead the California Democratic Party in 2009.

The next installment recounts perhaps the most infamous episode in Burton's past - the very public sexual harassment lawsuit brought by a former staffer, with excerpts from the complaint filed by Kathleen Driscoll in San Francisco Superior Court:

During DRISCOLL’S employment, BURTON engaged in hostile, demeaning and sexually abusive conduct such that DRISCOLL’S working conditions were significantly altered. His conduct over the past year easily rises to the level of severe or pervasive conduct for a hostile work environment sexual harassment claim both in California and under federal law. The harassing acts started in approximately September 2006. They consisted of numerous events, which took place throughout DRISCOLL’S employment, including but not limited to:
Asking DRISCOLL over the phone, “What are you wearing?” on approximately 10 occasions;

On one occasion, DRISCOLL sent a temporary employee to deliver paperwork to BURTON. BURTON ordered DRISCOLL to never send someone on her behalf again by berating her, “When you drop stuff off, stop in will ya? I mean I’m not getting laid under the fuckin’ table.”

Singling DRISCOLL out for exorbitant demands and attention, included but not limited to excessive demands for immediate and frequent meetings to go over routine matters, including on weekends after the work week was over in contrast to her co-workers;

There's more at the link, and it's pretty graphic. It goes without saying that women make up an extremely large bloc of the Democratic base.

I don't know what more Burton Watch will trot out, but here are some facts: Californians have little connection to their state government other than knowing that they don't like it. They hear things like how politicians are living high off campaign donations and it's both alienating and corrosive. The rules are already rigged in favor of a conservative wipeout of government and the last thing Democrats need as they seek to make structural changes is the spectre of an old-school pol with a lot of skeletons hanging over their collective heads. John Burton has the potential to take the state backwards and it's a chance that delegates should think long and hard about.

McCain Really Thinks He Can Win California

I've always thought that the repeated assertions by the McCain campaign that California is somehow in play, despite all polling to the contrary, was just bluster, an effort to get Democrats to throw money at a perceived problem, reminiscent of George Bush campaigning in the state in 2000 as a way to unnerve Al Gore. And the Huffington Post has obtained a Power Point presentation from the McCain campaign that suggests this is exactly what they're going to try. This slide includes the states McCain thinks he can contest in November.



The fine print reads: "McCain's unique appeal to independent voters creates opportunity in CA."

Those must be the independent voters that have a 42/48 favorable/unfavorable rating of McCain, compared to 72/19 for Obama in the latest Field Poll. The independents who preferred Obama by 30 points in the last LA Times poll.

This is a common trick by the Republicans, trying to bait Democrats into spending money here. All I can say is, please, please, John McCain, come campaign in the Golden State early and often. I'll do the advance work for you. And be sure you go up with a week or two of commercials at about $3 million per. I can think of no better way for you to waste your money back up your bold statements about victory in California than to focus all your efforts on this electoral prize.

And while you're at it, pay a little attention to your own home state of Arizona, which you acknolwedge might be a loss.

Certification Day In California

In addition to the voting in Texas and Ohio, today the results of the February 5 California primary become official. The final spread in the popular vote between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is 8.9%. Clinton garnered 51.8% to Obama's 42.9%. The final delegates will be 203 for Clinton to 167 for Obama. This roughly averages out to the exact spread in the head-to-head popular vote (Hillary got 54.6% of the head-to-head vote and 54.8% of the delegates), so the convoluted delegate apportionment system worked in the case of California.

I'm also pleased to announce that 47,153 "double bubble" votes were counted in Los Angeles County. The expectation on the day of the election was that none of these ballots from decline to state voters would be counted, but the pressure put on by the Courage Campaign and other groups led to this result. And by the way, 51% of those votes went to Hillary Clinton and 42% to Barack Obama, so those who insisted upon viewing this through some partisan lens can respectfully shut the fuck up. This was about voter rights and remedying disenfranchisement; it always was, even though it had no material impact on the overall election.

Double Bubble Trouble - 94,000 Uncounted

We have a number to attach to the disenfranchisement in Los Angeles County due to faulty ballot design - up to 94,000.

Spurred by confusion over Tuesday's voting, acting Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan said Wednesday that his office will examine more than 94,000 ballots cast by nonpartisan voters to determine how many votes for presidential candidates may have gone uncounted.

Logan said he also will try to determine whether the uncounted ballots would make a difference in the way delegates are apportioned between the Democratic presidential candidates and, if so, will seek legal approval to count as many as possible.

In other words, he doesn't want to count them. Because we know that there will be little or no impact on delegate counts. I went through this in a comment thread on Kos, but allow me to replicate.

For those playing at home, Los Angeles County CDs are 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 and 41. Of these, 24, 39 and 41 are only partially in LA County.

24 - 8,000 vote spread, not changing
25 - 9,000 vote spread, not changing
26 - 12,000 vote spread, not changing
27 - 18,500 vote spread, not changing
28 - 17,000 vote spread, not changing
29 - 6,400 vote spread, in all likelihood not changing
30 - 4,000 vote spread but it's an even-numbered delegate allocation, not changing
31 - 18,000 vote spread, but if Barack picked up enough, he could get it back to a 2-2 split
32 - 31,000 vote spread, not changing
33 - 27,000 vote spread for Barack, not changing
34 - 29,000 vote spread, not changing
35 - 17,000 vote spread for Barack, not changing
36 - 8,000 vote spread, not changing
37 - 8,000 vote spread for Barack, not changing
38 - 37,000 vote spread, not changing
39 - 26,000 vote spread, not impossible but only a piece of LA county is in the district, so not changing
41 - 15,000 vote spread, not changing

There is no question as to the voter's intent; they asked for a Presidential primary ballot, requiring them to fill in a bubble certifying that is redundant and stupid. This isn't a delegate issue, it's a voting rights issue. And no matter what the impact on the outcome, those votes should be counted.

But the registrar appears to be doing all he can not to count them. Look at this spin.

Election workers will examine these ballots to see if voters marked a presidential candidate. But even if they did, it may be difficult to count them.

The presidential ballot for independents who voted in the Democratic primary was the same as the ballot for those who voted in the American Independent primary.

In the American Independent contest, there were three candidates running, while the Democratic Party had eight. The bubbles for the first three candidates in each party were in the same position on the ballot, making it impossible to tell after the fact if a voter was voting Democratic or American Independent -- unless that person also filled in the bubble indicating party preference.

I don't know if they moved them around from precinct to precinct or not, but the first three candidates on my sample ballot were Gravel, Edwards, and Dodd, who probably got 20 votes at the ballot box between them. So nice try.

(This, by the way, does resolve the mystery of the bubble a bit. They clearly had several types of scan-tron sheets; one for Democrats, one for Republicans, one for each lesser party like the Greens, and one for DTS. Because the Democratic and the American Independent party opened their primaries, the double bubble told the machine which primary the DTS voter took part in. The obvious resolution would be to have different scan-tron sheets for DTS voters in the Dem primary, and DTS voters in the American Independent Party primary, all 8 of them. OR, forget the capturing of DTS information and Democratic information differently, and just give them a Dem ballot. You'd know by the voting rolls if a DTS voter participated in a partisan primary.)

The Courage Campaign, which has spearheaded this issue, wants every vote counted, and they've put together a petition to submit to the registrar.

Unfortunately, Dean Logan, the Registrar in charge of Los Angeles County, is refusing to conduct a physical hand-count of every "Decline-to-State" vote before the official vote is certified in just a few weeks.

Every vote must be counted. And time is running out. Please sign our petition to Registrar Dean Logan today demanding that he conduct a physical hand count of all "Decline-to-State" votes cast in the Democratic primary. The more names we add to this petition, the more likely it is that the Registrar will count every vote.

Never again. Not in California. Not in America. Please sign our petition to Registrar Dean Logan right now.

And the Sacramento Bee is out with a scathing editorial.

A major voting disaster Tuesday shows the pitfalls of having each of the state's 58 counties set its own rules and ballot designs. Voters in Los Angeles County who belong to no party ("decline-to-state" voters) and who wanted to vote in the Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday got a raw deal [...]

Worse, acting Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters Dean Logan told county supervisors that the county had used the same "double bubble" design in 2004 and 2006. In those elections, only 40 percent of the county's decline-to-state voters' ballots were counted. It is outrageous that the county knew of this massive disenfranchisement and did not make changes. This calls for an investigation.

County election officials knew that the decline-to-state vote in the Democratic Party primary Feb. 5 would be huge. Yet they failed to establish a system that would ensure that nonpartisan voters' votes would count.

Registrar Logan now has said that the county will look at the 94,500 uncounted ballots to see if they can "clearly identify the voters' intent." A clear mark for a presidential candidate should be enough.

California's patchwork of voting rules is a serious problem, and the Legislature should change it. The exciting 2008 election has encouraged a massive surge of participation. The state shouldn't squander it by disenfranchising qualified voters.

It's absurd that we have 94,000 disenfranchised voters and a registrar who's seemingly OK with that. Sign the petition.

Double Bubble Trouble Update

Thought I'd explain some things about the Double Bubble Trouble that has led to the potential disenfranchisement of a bunch of DTS voters in LA County. BradBlog has a good summary but here's the context.

There are 700,000-some DTS voters, but they didn't all vote in the primary. LA County registered 46% voter turnout yesterday, and my guess is that DTS voters are less likely to come to the polls. Let's say 40% of them voted; that'd be 280,000 voters. And it's completely unclear how many of them neglected to fill out that extra bubble that said "Democratic."

I can say this: based on the current vote count, the most likely scenario is that it will not result in changing one single solitary delegate. Maybe if a bunch of DTS voters in CA-31 or CA-36 went for Obama it'd shift something, but it's unlikely.

That's not a reason not to fight for every vote, however, and there are efforts afoot to do that, and it will be done, and those votes will eventually be counted, and this will be fixed for the future, as long as we keep talking about this and keep identifying the problem.

This is not a partisan issue, it's a voting rights issue. And ballot design should be certified by the Secretary of State's office as surely as type of machine. This was not a coordinated attempt to disenfranchise but a massive error going back 3 cycles.

We need a competent registrar of voters in LA County, too.

Double Bubble Update

I just got off the phone with our pal thereisnospoon, an Obama precinct captain. He informs me that all Obama precinct captains in LA County are aware of this, and they are fanning out to poll sites to educate pollworkers about this problem.

If anyone knows about anything the Clinton campaign is doing, please email me or leave a comment and I'll update. I think this was referring to a different issue (there were other glitches reported in LA County today), but it's not encouraging:

From the inbox: This is really weird. From the Clinton campaign:

4:25 PM EST HILLARY WIRE UPDATE…

* False reports about voting problems in LA are being drudged up
– Everything is going smoothly in LA.

I hope they wake up to what's happening.

UPDATE ETC: I get emails, from the CA field director for Obama, Buffy Wicks:

Californians have reported problems voting as "Decline to State" voters, commonly referred to as "unaffiliated," "independent" or "non-partisan" voters.

Please read this email for clarification of how "Decline to State" (DTS) voters can vote in today's election for Barack Obama. Even if you've already voted, please make sure this information gets to as many voters as possible.

DTS voters have the right to vote for Barack Obama in the Democratic Presidential Primary.

DTS voters must identify themselves as DTS or non-partisan voters and ask to vote in the Democratic Presidential Primary when they arrive at their polling location. They will get instructions from a poll worker on how to vote in the Democratic Primary. If a voter gets into the voting booth and finds that he or she does not have an option to vote for Barack Obama, the voter should not cast his or her ballot. Instead, he or she should return the partially filled-out or unmarked ballot to the poll worker, and ask the poll worker to seek clarification from the supervisor at the polling location or from the County Registrar of Voters.

In Los Angeles County, DTS voters will be given a non-partisan ballot which they must take into a "Democratic" booth. They must mark both the "Democratic" bubble and the bubble for Barack Obama.

If you or anyone you know has any problems voting today, please contact the local County Registrar of Voters or one of our election protection hotlines at:

Los Angeles:
310-801-9546
310-779-0816

San Francisco/Bay Area:
415-606-6043

Oakland/East Bay Area:
510-520-5025

San Diego:
619-770-7105

Or email electionprotection@obamaca.com

Thank you for your support.

UPDATE II: The city attorney of Los Angeles, Rocky Delgadillo (who, in the interest of disclosure, is an Obama supporter), issued this statement.

Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo Tuesday issued the following statement in the wake of numerous reports of wide-spread nonpartisan voter confusion over Los Angeles County's "double bubble" voter ballot:

"I have heard numerous reports from voters throughout the City of Los Angeles which point to wide-spread voter confusion over Los Angeles County's so-called 'double-bubble' Decline-to-State non-partisan voter ballot. We understand this ballot is unique to the County of Los Angeles.

"In light of these reports, I am calling upon Secretary of State Debra Bowen and L.A. County Registrar Dean Logan to review the county's unique and potentially confusing ballot design.

"It would be unfortunate if non-partisan voters, confused by the county's unique "double bubble" ballot design, did not have their vote counted.

"I urge the Secretary of State and County Registrar to do everything within their power to ensure that every vote is counted, and to carefully weigh voter intent against this confusing Los Angeles County ballot design.

"Los Angeles' non-partisan voters must not be disenfranchised because of a confusing ballot design."

One important thing to remember is that the more attention that gets paid to this, the more likelihood that the registrar and the Secretary of State will act in the proper fashion to ensure these votes are counted. But these votes will not be counted tonight... keep that in mind. California is unlikely to be called in any meaningful way tonight.

The Coming DTS Meltdown in LA County

So I went to my polling place at an off-hour to see if turnout was decent (it was pretty average, in my view). It was a new location for me, in a little art gallery featuring an exhibit called "Patriot Acts" (yes, a politically themed art installation in a polling place. Ah, the People's Republic of Santa Monica). I had no problem getting my ballot and heading to the booth. The guy behind me was a DTS voter who had no idea that Republicans didn't allow them to vote in the primary. "I wouldn't vote for the Republicans anyway," he yelled as he took a Democratic ballot. But nobody told him to make sure to fill out that Democratic oval to re-assert that he, as a nonpartisan voter, requested a Democratic ballot (as if taking the ballot in the first place wasn't enough of a clue). So I told him.

My neighbor was headed to the polls; she's also a DTS voter. I told her to make sure to fill out that Democratic oval. She said she kind of heard something about that but wasn't sure.

I've received more than a couple emails from DTS voters thanking me for telling them about the issue, or saying that they didn't fill out the bubble, asking me whether or not their votes will be counted.

This is a NIGHTMARE. An absolute nightmare. This has been in place since 2002, and somehow the evidence from 2004, when so few DTS voters participated in the Democratic primary in LA County, wasn't enough to dummy-proof the system. Thousands upon thousands of voters are going to be disenfranchised today. I can't reach them all; neither can the CDP. The Secretary of State must demand that all those DTS ballots are impounded, the machines recalibrated to eliminate this problem, and all votes reread through the feeder. In a race so close, we cannot have this crisis of confidence.

UPDATE: I'm on a conference call with the Obama campaign right now and they're talking about this very issue. "There is great concern" in Los Angeles County, and "the pollworkers are confused" about this as well, according to the lawyer on the phone now (I would use the word "ignorant" and not confused). "We're hoping the Secretary of State and the County Registrar will rectify this situation" but they don't sound particularly hopeful.

DTS voters are also being denied ballots in selected counties, according to the campaign.

Carla Marinucci is wondering why this wasn't challenged previously. This has been in place in LA County in multiple election cycles, and knowing that DTS voters would show up in record numbers, I agree that it should have been caught earlier. My point is that the Secretary of State's office or the county registrar should have been the ones to catch it. The lawyer just said "We hope that they will adopt procedures to make sure these ballots are counted," and if they aren't adopted, he raised the option of legal challenges.

These ballots almost certainly won't be counted tonight, and keep that in mind when you start seeing the results roll in.

They're hoping that the media gets this out. I'm trying.

California's Butterfly Ballot?

In Barack Obama's final email to supporters, this little reminder kind of jumped out at me:

If you declined to select a political party when you registered to vote, you can still vote for Barack Obama if you request a Democratic ballot from the poll worker. Make sure you mark "Democratic" in the appropriate space or the vote might not be counted.

Vote might not be counted, ay? What's this all about?

Turns out that in Los Angeles County, if a DTS voter requests their Democratic ballot and casts their vote, but does NOT mark "Democratic" in the appropriate space, the vote will indeed not be counted. The ballot will go through the scan-tron machine, not register as a counted vote, AND will not spit back out for the voter to fix. In LA County, they feed the ballot through the tabulator right in front of the voter, presumably to prevent errors just like this. But this one doesn't get caught in all the tests.

This seems to me significant just as a voting rights issue. There are 776,000 DTS voters in LA County alone, which is ¾ of everyone who has voted in the first four Democratic primaries thus far. Setting up an additional hurdle for these voters if they want to participate in the Democratic primary, and then NOT INFORMING THEM if they fail to clear that hurdle, seems to me to be just completely unacceptable.

Here's the ballot, and you can see that there's virtually no reason to give people something else to screw up. There's only one bubble to fill out, and it's already been implicitly "filled out" when they asked for the ballot in the first place.



Our friends in the Courage Campaign sent a letter to the Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters, noting that the law is pretty clear on the issue:

The statute is clear: voters who have already affirmatively requested a Democratic ballot and cast a vote for a Democratic candidate, but who inadvertently fail to mark line number 6, must have their vote counted. To do otherwise is contrary to the statute. We can find no statutory basis for requiring voters to mark additional boxes to indicate that they are DTS voters requesting a partisan ballot.

I'm trying to get a PDF of the letter up as well, but I'm all thumbs with this pesky technology, so bear with me. The point is that a lot of people tomorrow may not realize that their vote is in risk of not being counted. Which is terrible for democracy, regardless of preference in the primary race.

UPDATE: The full Courage Campaign letter is here.

UPDATE II: The AP has a story up. The acting registrar (Conny McCormack left in the middle of last year because Debra Bowen asking her to actually verify votes was just too taxing) had this to say:

"It would almost be counterintuitive for someone to miss," said Dean Logan, the acting county registrar. "We have put this information in voter education materials, and we've provided real clear instructions."

So, they've done all they could... except reminding people when it goes through the ballot feeder, which would take approximately five seconds.