Don't Forget to Vote! Drop that Absentee Ballot off or it won't count

I know you know this, but that absentee ballot will do you no good sitting on the coffee table at 8 PM on election day.  Yes, you missed the deadline to mail it in. But, you may still drop it off at your Registrar of Voters office anytime between now and 8 PM on election Day or at any polling place. Who knows you may be the one vote that makes a difference in a key race, when all those last minute ballots are counted, usually about two weeks out.

As a report in Capital Alert noted: "More than one-half of California’s 17.6 million registered voters have requested vote-by-mail ballots for Tuesday’s election. The question now is: Will they use them?"

The answer, my friends, is up to you. Mark your ballot and then take the time to get it in.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article3441781.html#storylink=cpy

Tip for New Candidates - Verify those signatures!

To run for office, at least in California, you need to collect signatures to put your name on the ballot. It sounds like a simple thing; you get a number (usually) 20 of registered voters in your District, who sign your papers, "nominating" you for the office. The trick is making sure the person is a registered voters, votes at the address they list on the form and goes by that name.

Most Registrar of Voters suggest that you get at least half again as many signatures as required, in case some of them turn out to be "bad."

Here's a case in point: A friend of mine was running for local office and needed 20 signatures. Each and every person she went to was known personally to her. She has no doubt the signatures she handed in were all good. Guess what; they weren't. Of her 20, just one was "bad" because a married woman signed with her husband's name, not her own, maiden, name she was registered under. That one disqualified her from the ballot.

My friend was too late to get more signatures and was not able to run for election that year.