The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors passed a policy Tuesday that will help voters differentiate between local measures of the past and present that share the same letter and cover similar issues.
In a unanimous vote, the board approved the policy that allows supporters of local measures to request a change in a measure’s letter to avoid confusion with other measures.
Supervisor Cindy Chavez called on county staff to prepare the policy earlier this month out of concern that voters may be confused with measures that have the same letter but appeared on the ballot in consecutive years and addressed similar matters.
Measure B on the June 7 ballot asks San Jose voters whether the city should implement a quarter-cent sales tax to help fund “essential” services such as emergency response, police assistance and road repairs.
In June 2012, another Measure B was passed by San Jose voters that required more contributions from new city employees to their pensions plans and current employees to choose a lower-cost plan or pay more into their existing one.
The 2012 measure led many city employee unions to file lawsuits and led to a Superior Court judge to rule against parts of the measure.
Earlier this year, the court invalidated the measure and the city has been allowed to implement a negotiated settlement with the unions.
“San Jose voters who wish to reverse the core provisions of the June, 2012 San Jose Measure B must vote “Yes” on the June, 2016 San Jose Measure B,” Chavez said in a statement.
“In other words, voters who want to OVERTURN Measure B must vote IN FAVOR of Measure B. We can expect voters to be confused,” Chavez said.
Under the policy, the request to change the letter designation must be made by a measure proponent or governing board of a district that’s the subject of the measure.
The request has to be written and sent to the Registrar of Voters by 5 p.m. on the 88th day before the election, according to the policy.
By Bay City News Service
By Bay City News Service
By Bay City News Service
Or, why not just make a policy that isn’t dumb and just advance through the alphabet automatically? I’m a board watcher and even I can’t keep straight all the Measure A’s.
Yes — If one election uses measures A-E, then the next election can use F, G, H, and the election after that I-M, etc. That way letters will only repeat every few years and it will alleviate some of the confusion.
This is a no- brainer! Obviously the powers that be are short on brain cells. Next, they’ll want a measure on the ballot to allot money for thinking caps.