Mail-in ballots have arrived in homes across California — along with some confusion.
Xavier Becerra, Steve Hilton, Chad Bianco, Tom Steyer, and Katie Porter are among the names voters are familiar with as they consider who to advance to the November election.
But when voters open their ballots to mark their choices, the exhaustive list of 61 candidates running for governor may come as a surprise.
Yes — 61 candidates appear on the ballot, taking up two pages and five columns in the voter pamphlet.
“It’s unusually high. It’s an absurdly large number,” Eric McGhee, policy director and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, told the California Post. “It’s not great to have that many candidates on the ballot.”
On June 2, California’s jungle primary will be held, where the top two candidates — regardless of party — advance to the November runoff. Most reports have focused on only eight to ten candidates in the race.
Eric Swalwell, who faces sexual assault allegations, and Betty Yee have both dropped out of the race, but their names remain on the ballot because the deadline to remove candidates had already passed.
Outside of the politically motivated and poll-leading candidates who have managed to secure at least 3% in pre-election polling, there are dozens who have only garnered a few thousand supporters — and that is enough for them to qualify for the ballot.
“Basically, you just have to be willing to pay the money or gather a reasonably large number of signatures,” McGhee said.
While a candidate must be a U.S. citizen, a registered voter, and free of certain felony convictions, the process for qualifying for the ballot is not especially restrictive.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
