Helped Jenn fill out her absentee ballot

[conuly]

The first ballot proposal was obvious, but 2 - 6 were - like, I had no idea what the impact would be or even if I cared. And the first guide I searched up told me that various groups had left public comments on the proposals but not whether or not they endorsed them. I don't need to know that the NYCLU said something, I need you to tell me or at least link me to what they said!

But I think, overall, all those other, lesser ballot proposals are disendorsed by organizations I trust to have given more thought to those subjects than I ever will, so I went with that. It took me a frustratingly long time to find that info.

Comments

[redbird]

I gather than items 2-6 are things Eric Adams wants.

[conuly]

I honestly couldn't even tell.

And listen, I'm the last person to complain about (or even notice) over-educated verbiage, but every time I read a fucking ballot proposal I think that they really need to hire people to dumb this shit down several notches. If my eyes are glazing over, I shudder to think what's going on with people who struggled through middle school and didn't graduate high school, or who speak English as a very distant second language.

[redbird]

Yeah. I was kvetching to Rysmiel in email about the slightly long and archaic titles of some Massachusetts actual and proposed bills, many of which are things like is "An Act relative to the preparation of bilingual ballots in English and Haitian Creole in the city known as the town of Randolph." But once you get past the formulaic "an act relative to..." and "city known as the town of Randolph," it's clear that this is about bilingual ballots in Randolph, and what the languages will be.

Massachusetts has five ballot proposals this year, and it's reasonably clear what four out of five would do if passed. I had trouble deciding how to vote on one, but not for that reason. Question 2 is whether the state should stop requiring a passing grade on a standardized test in order to graduate high school, and there are reasonable arguments both for and against, but "should we keep this test as a graduation requirement?" is fairly clear.

The one that's unclear is about the powers of the State Auditor, and I think the problem there is confusion about what "audit" means--it's not a financial audit, and the question is whether the auditor should be able to investigate how the state legislature does certain things.

[conuly]

Sorry, I put in the wrong amount of profanity in that second paragraph. Triple it, please.

[hudebnik]

They say they're legally required to describe the ballot referendum in language "at an eighth grade level", and I think it technically was that, but the descriptions appear to carefully leave out telling you what the referendum does. Even referendum 1, which IIUC is largely about enshrining abortion rights in the state Constitution, is described without using the word "abortion" anywhere.

"Modifies the time limits", "clarifies the authority" -- that doesn't help me unless you also tell me in what direction the time limits are modified, what authority does the agency "clearly" have (or not have) that wasn't clear before, or vice versa... It's as though the descriptions were written to make the referenda sound like boring, bureaucratic trivia, which tells me somebody very much wants most voters not to care about them.

And it would be really helpful if the referendum descriptions gave us actual arguments for and against, and the names of organizations on both sides. That was standard when I lived in California.

Common Cause NY supports proposal 1 and opposes the other 5, so that's my starting point.

[conuly]

It's as though the descriptions were written to make the referenda sound like boring, bureaucratic trivia, which tells me somebody very much wants most voters not to care about them.

Also, it does seem to me like they crammed a lot of stuff into each of those, including things that probably don't need to be crammed together like that.

[moxie_man]

In Maine, they put out a pamphlet every year breaking down each bond/referendum question, explaining what it means, and what the impact will be (including costs) if it is passed.

[james]

Every single time, I am grateful that Oregon does mail-in voting and ALSO sends out a huge packet ahead of time that spells everything out and lists all the endorsements, arguments for and against (that anyone can submit, so Joe Shcmo from next door can send his letter in saying why he thinks it's a good/bad idea.)

It helps me so much because otherwise I would never have a clue if I was supposed to vote for or against things. (Usually I look at the list of endorsements and find the people/orgs I like.)

I wish every state would do this! We even get the tiny pamphlets for the city and county elections that pop up.

[frandroid]

So, the proposals that were incomprehensible were to be avoided? The obscure language seems to be on purpose to hope people will vote yes against their interest?

[conuly]

That's my takeaway, but I had to track down who was and wasn't endorsing these to figure it out.

[ioplokon]

California props are a special nightmare.

[hudebnik]

Yes, as I recall from my time in California (1986-1992), every time there was a proposition to actually do something useful, the industry it regulated would write a similar-sounding proposition that didn't do anything but which would nullify the first proposition if it got more votes.

But there was always a reasonably informative pamphlet telling you what each proposition did, together with pro and con statements from some of its most-prominent supporters and opponents.