Why Your Signature Is Worth So Much This Election Season

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A California mail-in ballot in 2012. Creative Commons image by Flickr user Dianne Yee

 By Angela Johnston, KALW/Crosscurrents

The California ballot will be crowded this November. Last week, the Secretary of State put out a list of the official initiatives — all 17 of them. We’ll be voting on whether the state should legalize marijuana, lower the cost of pharmaceuticals, repeal the death penalty, require condoms in porn and countless others. And the large number of measures makes the process a lot more expensive. Here’s why.

There will be almost twice as many initiatives on the ballot this year than in the last presidential election, in 2012. Part of the reason for this increase is because the bar to qualify is lower. The number of signatures you need to get your measure on the ballot is based on 5 percent of the number of people who voted in the last governor’s race. So, fewer votes means fewer signatures.

Read the complete story at KALW/Crosscurrents.
 

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