Your Candidate Statement

For some people, those 200 words on the ballot will be all they read about your campaign. So make the most of them.

As noted in an earlier post, not all jurisdictions have the same requirements for how you organize those 200 words, so be sure you know the local rules first. Then proceed to answer the question on every voter's mind: What can you do for me?

Are you proposing new jobs, more business, less development? Whatever your issues are, list them succinctly and coherently in a few short paragraphs. State your qualifications. Are you the incumbent? If so, how have you improved the City or District? Are you looking to move up the political food chain? If so, how will what you have done in your current job help improve the lives of voters in the new one? Below is an example of a Planning Commissioner running for City Council. He mentions what he's done and specifics of what he'll do. His website is listed at the end.

Are you running against an incumbent? While you are not allowed to mention any opponents by name or description, you can say things like "For a long time, this District has been at an impasse. My skills (doing x, y z) will help move us forward. Then say how.

Be sure you list any high profile endorsers and mention your website.

Consistency is Crucial in Campaigns

Is your campaign look, feel and messaging consistent in all media? That is, does your sign have your logo and the same color theme as your website? Do your email blasts to supporters and volunteers use the same look, maybe coupled with a picture of you that is the same as on the website and in your materials?

Does your mail continue the theme with logo, photos and messaging?

Make sure you are consistent in all things to do with your campaign, and you won't confuse the voters, or worse, send mixed messages or give the impression your campaign is sloppy or seat of the pants, not well organized and thoughtful.

Below are some examples of a successful coordinated campaign in signs, website and messaging:

Richard Benson's sign for Assessor in Marin County, California

Benson mail mock up

Benson logo at top of home page

Is it time for uniformity in ballot statement rules?

Did you know that the rules for how you prepare your ballot statement is different all over the state? In California at least. The Election Code only prescribes that:

       ELE §13307. (a) (1) Each candidate for nonpartisan elective office in any local agency, 
       including any city, county, city and county, or district, may prepare a candidate’s statement 
       on an appropriate form provided by the elections official. The statement may include the 
       name, age, and occupation of the candidate and a brief description, of no more than 200 
       words, of the candidate’s education and qualifications expressed by the candidate himself 
       or herself. However, the governing body of the local agency may authorize an increase 
       in the limitations on words for the statement from 200 to 400 words. The statement shall 
       not include the party affiliation of the candidate, nor membership or activity in partisan 
       political organizations. 

This means different counties apply different standards above and beyond this, which sometimes come into conflict with the law. For instance, in Santa Clara you must indent paragraphs but not have spaces between them. You also cannot have more than 22 lines. Other counties format the statements themselves and don't worry about the lines. In Marin County, you may not indent and you must have no more than 4 paragraphs. If you have more, they simply run a few together.

Most Counties prohibit italics, all CAPS, highlighting and bullet points.  But even within counties, different standards prevail depending on the election and the official administering it, from what I gathered looking over some recent published statements.

This can be confusing to a novice, or even experienced, candidate, who try to submit a carefully worded statement only to find he has run afoul of some arcane rule or another.

I think it might be time for some uniform rules for all Counties to follow. Until then, know the rules in your County well ahead of time, then craft your statement accordingly.

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.

Day Six - Recount over!

John Perez has called off the recount. Thank you for listening to the people. Congratulations Betty Yee and on to November!

Move on Mr. Speaker

Move On should start a petition asking John Perez to "Move on" and stop the recount now, so Betty Yee can get on with the General Election for Controller already. I mean, jeesh, the State Democratic Party has given her $50,000 and declared her the winner and endorsed candidate.

What kind of apple cart does he want to upset anyway?

It's time. #stoptherecount.

Perez Fatal Mistake? No Candidate's Statement in Voter Guide

Amazing. John Perez, Speaker of the California Assembly, Emeritus, who has now dragged the Controller's election out beyond mid-July because of his ill-advised recount, failed to submit a candidate's statement for publication in the voter information guide sent to every voter in the State.

True that many voters don't read them, but equally true that some voters read only those statements before making up their mind who to vote for. Could this be the main reason State Board of Equalization member Betty T. Yee, eked out a scant 481 more votes than Perez, despite being outspent three times over? I've seen this simple mistake made by others and the results are clear. No statement shows a disdain for the voters and they may well show a disdain for the candidate on election day.

So speculated Jim Miller of the Sacramento Bee yesterday, also noting that only those candidates who agree to abide by a voluntary spending limit of no more than $5.44 million in a statewide race are eligible for the statements. Interestingly Perez did not appear to come near that mark in his Primary race spending, but his $1.7 million spent through the last reporting period of May 17th was close to treble the amount spent by Yee to that date.

So, instead of laying out $6,250 for a ballot statement, Perez is spending hundreds of thousands on a recount to try to scare up 482 votes and beat Yee long after election Day. This is hubris at its most unattractive. This is not what we expect from our Democratic Party.

And apparently not what the  Democratic Party itself expects either, as they have accepted Yee as the winner and endorsed Democrat in the race, and put $50,000 into her bank account to help pay for her expenses associated with the recount.

Stay tuned.