It is with much appreciation that I announce to our readers that we are officially back from our candidate filing period hiatus. Due to some of our new partnerships that we have made a lot of candidates are now working with us for this November election especially after the success we had in June with Linda Lindholm, Eric Woolery, Tony Rackauckas, Ira Glasky, Robert Ming, etc… Now that candidate filing has closed we will have the time to start updating the blog more frequently.

One item that I just noticed while catching up on news was the story of the city Ethics Commission in Los Angeles recommending a lottery in which $1,000 cash prizes will be offered to people as an incentive for voting. This comes as a result of extremely low voter turnout in the last city council election. I find this to be an absolutely horrendous idea with a number of potential negative results. The biggest problem with this is the potential for more uninformed voters turning out simply to earn a shot at $1,000 without researching the candidates.

If LA really wants to increase voter turnout they can do so with a couple of simple fixes:

1) Update who is on the active voter rolls. Orange County had their voter roll shrink by 17% this last year during a large-scale update. By shrinking the active voter rolls it will give a more accurate picture of voter turnout.

2) Consolidate the election with the Gubernatorial and Presidential elections. By having an election in an odd year fewer people will be motivated to turn out thus driving down voter turnout. If the elections are consolidated with the June Primary and November General Election in even years, turnout will see an increase.

I find voting to be a civic duty and am appalled by the idea of offering cash prizes to get people out to vote. One final gripe I have is about why the LA Ethics Commission has anything to say about this. What does voter turnout have to do with ethics?