Vote early, vote strong

  • [image from BallotPedia]

    [image from BallotPedia]

This year, ballots will be mailed to all registered voters, according to Laura Cantu, Kern County’s acting elections division chief. Poll sites will also be available for voters who choose to vote in person.

In light of the unpredictability of all things in our covid-19 world, the wise word regarding the 2020 election is to cast your ballot early. This will ensure it gets cast and counted in plenty of time, without last minute risks.

Puzzling Propositions

What keeps many voters from mailing their ballots before the last minute is the list of propositions. We want to help you avoid prop-cramming the night before the election so we can all vote early, and vote strong. Over the coming weeks we will examine the ballot measures, to help us all be wise early-bird voters.

To start, this is an overview of them all, with some highlights from ballotpedia.org, as well as some election basics below.

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BALLOT HIGHLIGHTS
(with contributions from
ballotpedia.org)

• Uber, Lyft and DoorDash are sponsoring Prop. 22, which would define app-based drivers as independent contractors and not employees, as well as enact several labor and wage policies. They have already spent over $110 million to try to sway the public.
• Californians will decide two citizen-initiated measures, the Criminal Sentencing Initiative (Prop. 20) and Cash Bail Referendum (Prop. 25), designed to amend or repeal criminal sentencing and supervision laws passed 2011-2019.
• A ballot initiative to amend Proposition 13 (1978) will be on the ballot (Prop. 15). The proposal would tax commercial and industrial properties based on market value, rather than their purchase price, plus the lesser of inflation or 2 percent.
•After Proposition 10 was defeated in 2018, Californians will be able to vote on this modified rent control measure (Prop. 21)

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Tips to make sure you are early-bird ready:

• If you are eligible to vote but are not yet registered, you can register online
at registertovote.ca.gov or you can call the Elections Office at 661.868.3590 or
1-800-452-VOTE to request a registration form. Registration deadline is October 20.
• You can check your registration status to make sure the information is up-to-date
at voterstatus.sos.ca.gov.
• To update your signature on file with the election office go to KernVote.com/
VotebyMail/Forms.
• If you would like to volunteer to be a poll worker on election day go to
KernVote.com or pollworker.sos.ca.gov.
• For more information on the vote by mail process, visit KernVote.com to view a
video on vote by mail.
• For additional information on preparing for the November election, visit
vote.ca.gov.

—Patric Hedlund and Marcy Axness, TME, from Kern Co. press release
More to come, keep watching…

This is part of the August 14, 2020 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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