State law caps the amount donors can give to a legislator’s campaign — but these special interests can spend as much as they like mounting their own campaigns to praise or trash candidates. And the money interest groups are pouring into these “independent expenditure committees” has reached dizzying heights. So far more than $31 million […]
Election Night
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Voter Assistance Centers Open Saturday
All nine of Humboldt County’s Voter Assistance Centers will open this Saturday, Oct. 31, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The centers will be open to all voters for in-person voting, vote-by-mail ballot drop off, replacement ballots and same-day registration voting beginning Saturday (8 a.m. to 4 p.m.) through Election Day on Tuesday (7 a.m. […]
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Worried it’s Too Late to Send in Your Ballot? Don’t Panic
Less than a week before Election Day and anxiety over the postal service’s ability to ferry voters’ ballots to county election administrators on time has ratcheted up yet again. Back in May, the United States Postal Service’s top lawyer advised voters across the country to put their ballots in the mail no later than 7 […]
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Do You Know Where Your Ballot Is?
For the first time, Californians can track their mail-in ballots from the point they’re printed to the moment they’re accepted by their county elections office. Ballot tracking, now available in parts or all of a dozen states, has become a particularly useful option this year, when many voters are anxious about election security. As of […]
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Replacing Cash Bail: Fairer Justice or Robopocalypse?
California is either about to right decades of inequality between rich and poor defendants by eliminating cash bail, or it’s about to turn over its justice system to robots. The question of what to do about the system that decides whether people should be free while awaiting trial will be determined by Proposition 25. The […]
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Why do we keep voting on this? Exploring Prop. 13’s ‘Tax Revolt Family Tree’
The tax revolt started in California in 1978, but it never really ended. Four decades ago mad-as-hell voters banded together to pass Proposition 13, capping property taxes, slapping a constitutional muzzle on state government and wringing local budgets like a washcloth. The electorate’s anti-tax fever may have broken in the years since, but the legacy […]
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Elections Office: A Quarter of HumCo’s Registered Voters Have Already Cast Ballots
Roughly a quarter of Humboldt County’s registered voters have already cast ballots, according to Registrar of Voters Kelly Sanders. With the state having pivoted to an all vote-by-mail election and officials having urged voters to get their ballots filled out and in the mail — or one of the official ballot drop boxes located throughout […]
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No Reports of ‘Unofficial’ Ballot Drop Boxes in Humboldt
Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Kelly Sanders told the Journal in an email today that she has not heard any local reports of unofficial ballot drop boxes surreptitiously appearing in the region, like the ones showing up in the southern ends of the state. Two California officials, including the secretary of state, have deemed the […]
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Virtually No Chance for a Ruckus at Dem Convention
Jeanna Harris was in Philadelphia when the Democratic Party convened there in the summer of 2016, and she had plenty of ways to “make some good trouble.” Harris was part of the bloc within the California delegation supporting the failed presidential bid of Bernie Sanders. She and her fellow progressives cheered and jeered, ensuring their […]
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Are You Ready to Vote?
The Humboldt County Office of Elections wants you to be ready for the Nov. 3 election, which is really just around the corner. In a press release today, the office details all the steps necessary to make sure your vote is counted and where to go to find more information. All registered voters will be receiving […]
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Could Trump ‘Sabotage’ California’s All-Mail Election?
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE For months President Donald Trump has been reluctant to extend a lifeline to the financially infirm Postal Service, a reluctance his critics have said is motivated by his loathing of vote-by-mail. On Thursday, Trump made that subtext … text. Speaking about the ongoing COVID relief negotiations on […]
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Tribal Chair: ‘Huge Discrepancy’ in Hoopa Election Results Being Referred to U.S. Attorney, Sheriff’s Office for Investigation
Hoopa Valley Tribal Chair Byron Nelson Jr. said in a statement today that a recount of election results “indicated a huge discrepancy in the number of calculated votes” for one district and findings suggest “individuals and potentially groups of individuals have engaged in efforts to manipulate election results.” The matter, he said, will be referred […]