My boss Karen England was at the Placer County Registrar of Voters this morning when Doug Ose showed up to cast his ballot. Here’s her account from Red County:

Ose Doesn’t Know How to Vote in the 4th CD

As Mike Spence just reported, Doug Ose failed to sign his ballot when he voted at the Placer County Registrar of Voters this morning. I was actually there with Rick Staats and we witnessed the whole episode. Here’s what happened when Ose realized he hadn’t signed his ballot. The election officials had to get a key to unlock and reopen the highly secured ballot box and retrieve his invalid ballot. In true elitist fashion he was unwilling to take responsibility for his incompetence, muttering under his breath “this is bull ****!”

Since when is ballot security bull ****?

Keep in mind that yesterday Ose had McNally Temple employee Richard Robinson call the Registrar’s office and ask to have someone there to “show Doug how to vote.” He needs to be shown how to vote? Guess he… Read More

OC Blog is holding its traditional prediction contest about today’s primary, and FR readers are invited to enter for fun and prizes.

Enter you predictions for the winner and loser(s) in the following contests:

– 33rd Senate District: Mimi Walters v. Harry Sidhu

– 29th Senate District: Bob Huff v. Dennis Mountjoy

– 71st Assembly District: Jeff Miller v. Neil Blais

– 60th Assembly District: Larry Dick v. Curt Hagman

– 1st Supervisor District: Janet Nguyen v. Dina Nguyen v. Hoa Van Tran

– 3rd Supervisor District: Bill Campbell v. Donald Ritze

Entrants need to enter the winning/losing percentages as well as the name of the winning/losing candidates.

Click here to read the rest of the post and make your predictions.… Read More

Can’t imagine what other newsworthy events are occurring in California today!

In that case, I’ll be brief:

The Abramoff "matter" continues and coverages recalls a California connection and new earmark troubles as well as a recent plea. From Politico, and the Post.

Garry South pens a column in Politico about the Dem. primary.

Newt’s California tech industry guru is profiled in the Post. Speaking of: the story uses the phrase "the Valley" an offending number of times–does anyone talk like that about Silicon Valley? Interesting work by Newt however.

And, Lou Cannon (now a California resident–Carpenteria, I recall) pens a Reagan-Hillary comparison in the Post… Read More

For die-hard FlashReport politicos, I thought I would take a few minutes and walk you through “Jon’s Guide to Republican Primaries” – a “cheat sheet” of sorts – with some predictions on my part on what promises to be a very low turnout election (thanks Fabian!)…

I should add for the vast majority of FR readers who are not “insiders” – this column might be a bit hard to digest. There is a facet of our readership who “lives” this stuff, and will appreciate all of this. They are the intended audience for this piece.

First and foremost, and this may go without saying, there are no incumbents that are up for re-election this year to Congress, Senate or the Assembly who are facing a serious primary challenger. So you can check all of those legislators off of the list.

THE UNCONTESTED (OR PRACTICALLY UNCONTESTED)… Read More

With all the many candidates chasing few voters today, it brings to mind how interesting our traditional June primary could’ve been if our entire primary was today. Senator Clinton and Obama could have spent a ton of money in CA the last few weeks instead of a pittance in February’s term limit exten….I mean "presidential primary" election, not to mention the entertainment value of their hard fought effort to get all of CA’s delegates at this time.

We coulda been relevant! Would’ve helped our election vendors economy here too. Think of "all that revenue the state has lost" andat a time when the drumbeat for feesand taxes is getting louder because of our messed up budget…but hey, we know that the $90 million taxpayerspaid for a third election this year won’t be missed and will really help make the case for a subsequent term limit proposition to be embraced by the public! Meanwhile all you poll checkers, try to stay awake today, and thanks again Prop 93!… Read More

For die-hard FlashReport politicos, I thought I would take a few minutes and walk you through “Jon’s Guide to Republican Primaries” – a “cheat sheet” of sorts – with some predictions on my part on what promises to be a very low turnout election (thanks Fabian!)…

I should add for the vast majority of FR readers who are not “insiders” – this column might be a bit hard to digest. There is a facet of our readership who “lives” this stuff, and will appreciate all of this. They are the intended audience for this piece.

First and foremost, and this may go without saying, there are no incumbents that are up for re-election this year to Congress, Senate or the Assembly who are facing a serious primary challenger. So you can check all of those legislators off of the list.

THE UNCONTESTED (OR… Read More

Today Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced that several more ballot measures have qualified for November, including the Protect Marriage Constitutional Amendment.

Already qualified are:

Human Rights For Poultry More Bonds 1: Children’s Hospitals More Bonds 2: The Superduper Speedy Train (for those actually can use it) Parental Notification before a minor has abortion surgery Sentencing of Non-Violent Offenders Safe Neighborhoods (anti-gang) "Renewable" (Code for More Costly) Energy Requirements

Coming soon is the likely qualification of the Common Cause/Schwarzenegger redistricting measure…

(h/t to Shane G. at the SacBee)… Read More

I got an email today from my friend Tim Rosales letting me know that Marcia Tookey passed away.

I didn’t know Marcia Tookey for the entire time she was active in politics. You see, by the late date of my birth in 1970 she was already an established volunteer in Los Angeles, during the glory days. She was a tireless organizer of precincts, and more important she had a working knowledge of the county of LA as a whole, almost quite literally precinct by precinct. She knew where the phone banks could be found, where you couldn’t walk, and who was reliable or not.She was one of the handfull of people who remembered the organizational methods of the previous years, and was willing to teach them. Her lessons made a huge difference in my professional life.

Marciaknew the details that made the difference between a GOTV program that works and one that doesn’t. In 2000 I was field director for victory 2000 and (before campaign finance "reform") we had established some two dozen staffed local offices in LA for various party programs, including the traditional election day push. Like a fool, I had centralized the printing of the election day… Read More