Word: ballot
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...candidates, so they did not receive campaign-related e-mails in the week running up to the election. Their photos and personal statements were finally posted online two hours after voting began, but one of their names still ended up being misspelled on the ballot...
...vocalizing, he has enough vaudeville swank and showmanship to make him an irresistible cartoon villain. (The same can't be said for Sutherland's mayor, a one-note sociopath who risks Metro City's very existence in order to get re-elected. Why doesn't he just rig the ballot boxes like any normal despot...
...This gets to the one area where California really is dysfunctional: its budget. Californians generally enjoy government spending more than they enjoy paying for it, which is a national problem, but they've also straitjacketed their politicians with scads of lobbyist-produced ballot initiatives locking in huge outlays for various goodies, as well as the notorious Proposition 13, which has severely restricted local property taxes since 1978. California is also one of only three states that need a two-thirds supermajority to pass a budget or raise taxes, a virtual impossibility in its ultra-partisan legislature. So it relies...
...Fortunately, help may be on the way. Nonpartisan groups like Repair California and California Forward have built momentum for sweeping reforms that could stop the unsustainable chaos - including an end to the two-thirds rule, limits on ballot initiatives and a new system of taxation. Schwarzenegger is pushing for a gargantuan water-sharing agreement that could help prevent the state from running dry. And his potential successors are also formidable go-getters with forward-thinking credentials - including former governor and current attorney general Jerry Brown, golden-boy San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Brown...
...Indeed, for purposes of creating a representative government as the foundation of U.S. counterinsurgency strategy, the key flaw of Afghanistan's August election was not the widespread ballot fraud; it was the fact that almost 3 out of 4 voters didn't show up at the polls because of the Taliban security threat. So, while a runoff election might satisfy the fraud complaints, it won't make the resulting government much more representative unless millions more voters show up at the polls this time. But the deteriorating security situation and limits of the appeal of both candidates give little reason...