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timThis is my voter guide for the November 3, 2020 election in Alameda County, California. Some measures/candidates are statewide, some not. If you're not eligible to vote in California, you can probably stop reading here, unless you're really nerdy.
Eligible to vote in California but not registered to vote? You can register to vote, and vote early, on the same day, at your county elections office, right up until the election. In Alameda County, that's the basement of the courthouse at 1225 Fallon St. in downtown Oakland. This is called conditional voter registration and means you will vote on a provisional ballot. As of today, this is your only option if you want to vote but are not registered at your current residential address.
State and federal offices
President/VP: Biden/Harris
Look, I get it. Biden is a rapist. Harris is a cop. Biden said I should be arrested and imprisoned because I'm an anarchist, which is a pretty fascist thing to say. If you want to sit this one out, I won't judge you. However, even if you can't stomach voting for one of the two viable presidential candidates, please vote in state and local elections, no matter where you live. State legislatures are where increasingly authoritarian Republicans gain legitimacy, and where you can stop them.
House of Representatives, 13th district: Barbara Lee
She's done some disappointing things lately that break from her previous record as one of the most anti-military members of Congress. I think she's still worth supporting as one of the best members of Congress. However, her Republican opponent is extremely unlikely to win, so if you sit this one out too, I won't judge you.
State senator, 9th district: Nancy Skinner
Skinner is a pretty middle-of-the-road Democrat. However, i don't want a libertarian (her only opponent) to win, no matter how unlikely that is.
State assembly, 15th district: Sara Brink
According to the Alameda County Green Party voter guide (linked at the end of this post), Brink "wishes her campaign to be a protest devoid of a strategic/organizational structure.” Considering who the incumbent is, I'd say that sounds just fine to me, and her positions on the issues are good.
Superior Court Judge, Office #2: Elena Condes
Both candidates are gay or lesbian, which is cool. However, I support Condes because her background in criminal defense law is likely to make her more sympathetic to people who are oppressed by the criminal justice system.
Proposition 15 (property tax fairness): Yes! Commercial and industrial landlords don't pay enough in property taxes, and this measure will increase funding for public schools and community colleges by making the rich pay something closer to their fair share.
Proposition 16 (restore affirmative action): Yes! Affirmative action isn't the only necessary step to counter systematic racism, but it is a necessary step. Right-wingers terrified of a world in which white people don't enjoy unearned privilege have waged a mostly-successful campaign for decades to keep structural racism in place by resisting public policies that give white women and all people of color a fair chance. Voting yes on this proposition is a chance to fight back.
Proposition 17 (allow formerly incarcerated people to vote): Yes! Our current system is a grotesque civil rights violation; until we can abolish prisons, restoring voting rights to people who have completed a prison term is a necessary step. There's no excuse to deny the right to contribute to changing the criminal justice system to people who have been harmed by that system, the very people who need to have a voice in changing it.
Proposition 18 (allow some 17-year-olds to vote in some elections): Yes! Being 17 doesn't mean you aren't affected by laws and policies. There shouldn't be a minimum age for voting (if you're skeptical about 10-year-olds voting, think about who you trust more, upper-middle-class Baby Boomers who get all their news from Facebook, or 10-year-olds). But again, this is an incremental improvement.
Proposition 19 (reform property taxes to redistribute more wealth from the poor to the rich): No. This one is confusing, and I found a few helpful resources: an LA Times opinion piece and the report it links to, from the California Budget and Policy Center. Speaking of rich Boomers, this proposition is tailor-made to benefit them and deliver a giant fuck-you to the rest of us: the heading "Prop. 19 Expands Tax Breaks for Older, Mostly White Homeowners Who Tend to Be Economically Secure Already, Reducing the Equity of California’s Tax System” from CBPC says it all. Vote no.
Proposition 20 (more of the same failed tough-on-crime policy that's burdened us for decades): No. This proposition would increase criminal penalties for non-violent crime, further limit access to parole, and -- perhaps most alarmingly -- increase required DNA testing for incarcerated people and those on parole. Incarceration doesn't solve social problems. Vote no.
Proposition 21 (allow local governments to enact rent control): Yes! Housing is a human right, and this is an incremental improvement.
Proposition 22 (allow certain employers to treat employees as independent contractors without restriction): NO! Don't be fooled by tech company astroturfing campaigns that use sockpuppets pretending to be app-based ride drivers and claiming a "no" vote would threaten their livelihoods. Bosses' interests are diametrically opposed to employees' interests; if this was good for workers, Uber and Lyft wouldn't be funding it. Prop. 22 has been called the most dangerous development in terms of worker rights in history. Don't assume that only rideshare drivers will be affected: if this passes, it will be one step towards the libertarian dream world where workers have no rights. If you abstain from every other item on the ballot, please, still vote no on this one.
This is the GamerGate of ballot measures: Uber and Lyft have been funding massive harassment campaigns against major critics of Prop. 22, such as the law professor Veena Dubal -- and some of those critics just happen to be women of color. Coincidence, I'm sure. If you're a podcasty sort of person, and you're on the fence, check out an episode of the "Working People" podcast that's an interview with Dubal.
Proposition 23 (safety regulations for dialysis clinics): Yes. As an interfacility transport EMT, I spent some time in a number of dialysis clinics over the past year and a quarter, picking up and dropping off patients and getting reports from staff members. I can tell you firsthand that most of these clinics are sketchy as hell and need actual physicians, nurse practitioners, or physician assistants on-site, not just underpaid and exploited technicians. Do you want your blood circulating out of your body, into a machine, and back into your body without a doctor on-site? Most dialysis clinics are owned by two huge, highly profitable companies that are pouring their profits into campaigning against this measure. They claim it will hurt patients. Nothing could be further from the truth -- by analogy with Prop. 22, the interests of dialysis clinic owners are diametrically opposed to those of patients, who (from the owners' perspective) are mere gateways to the process of transferring public funds (since most dialysis patients are covered by Medicare and/or Medi-Cal) into private pockets. The big clinic owners claim this proposition would cause small independent clinics to shut down, but if it would actually do that, they would support it, since they don't want the competition. Protect vulnerable people by voting yes.
Proposition 24 (consumer privacy reform): No. I found this one confusing, but the EFF declined to endorse it, and while I don't trust the EFF on a lot of things, I trust them on this one. This proposition is funded by big tech companies, who don't have your best interests in mind; they want to extract your data, just like dialysis clinics want to extract insurance reimbursements with as little overhead as possible. The Green Party also pointed that Prop. 24 "takes privacy rule-making out of the hands of the state Department of Justice, instead creating a new state agency. Not only will this agency likely be underfunded by the initiative, it will be much more vulnerable to influence by the deep-pocket tech giants." The ACLU and the Council on American-Islamic Relations also oppose this measure, which is good enough reason for me to vote no.
Proposition 25 (bail reform): No. This one is hella misleading: a lot of us want to eliminate money bail, since if you believe incarcerating people accused of crimes will keep us safe (which I don't believe), it doesn't make sense to incarcerate based on personal income rather than the crime that was allegedly committed. But this proposition would replace cash bail with an algorithmic system, which should set off alarm bells in the mind of anybody who has ever used a computer. It's well-documented that "the algorithm said so" has been used over and over to enshrine bias and protect powerful people from accountability, including in the criminal justice system. This is a dangerous proposition, and we can reform bail without replacing it with an unaccountable, transparency-free software system.
Measure W: Yes. While sales taxes are regressive, and this measure increases the sales tax rate, it will provide additional funding for housing and mental health services that we badly need.
Measure Y: Yes; fund public schools.
AC Transit District Director, at-large: Chris Peeples. Peeples, the incumbent, uses a wheelchair, which isn't everything, but it's a step for disabled representation in public transportation. The Green Party voter guide swayed me on this one.
AC Transit District Director, Ward 2: Jean Walsh -- I'm not thrilled about either candidate, but Walsh seems like a stronger progressive, and is someone who relies on public transit herself.
I can't trust a candidate who's backed by the police officers' association and who thinks "degrading police" is a bad thing. This election seems to be a proxy for whether you want more of the cops who murdered Oscar Grant to be free to kill Black people riding BART, or less of that. The choice is clear.
Measure RR (allow unlimited fines for ordinance and municipal code violations): No; this one is being touted as a social justice measure to make big corporations pay their share, there's too much discretion here that will inevitably be abused to extract excessive revenue from people for doing things like wearing a mask that conceals their identity or sitting on a public sidewalk.
Measure S1 (strengthen police review): Yes, I guess? This seems like the kind of police reform that ultimately fails to deliver results because police can't be reformed, but it seems like the right people support it.
Oakland city elections use ranked-choice voting.
City Council member, at-large: Rank Rebecca Kaplan only. Don't rank the other two candidates, one of whom (Johnson) is an abusive boss, and the other of whom (Sidebotham) is a bootlicker who only stands up for business owners and cops. Unfortunately, a process of elimination is what we've got here.
City Council member, District 1: Rank Tri Ngo #1, Dan Kalb #2. Don't rank Steph Dominguez Walton, who is on the ballot to try to seize this office for conservatives masquerading as Democrats. Tri Ngo is clearly the best candidate; Kalb, the incumbent is described by the Green Party as "the best of the progressive establishment sector of the local Democratic Party", which is probably the best we can do in North Oakland.
City Attorney: Rank Eli Ferran only. The incumbent, Barbara Parker, is pro-cop, and while Ferran doesn't say enough about police reform, he at least says the right things.
School Director, District 1: Stacy Thomas #1, Sam Davis #2. Do not rank Austin Dannhaus, who supports charter schools, a mechanism to sustain racial segregation and transfer public funds into private hands. Thomas has the best platform on restorative justice, while Davis says nothing about eliminating police from schools but does have a good stance on charter schools (they're bad).
Thanks to:
Alameda County Green Party voter guide (as usual, I disagree with some of their conclusions but their analyses are as thoughtful as it gets)
Space Cat Voter Guide for Oakland
Rachel Swan, "Policing debates, more than vanished ridership, could shape BART board elections", San Francisco Chronicle
Liam Dillon, "Who wins and who loses with California property tax measure Proposition 19 LA Times.
California Budget & Policy Center, "Proposition 19: Creates a Complicated Property Tax Scheme and Reinforces Racial Inequities in California"
Maximillian Alvarez, "California's Prop 22 Would Be a Disaster for Workers Everywhere" (podcast episode). In These Times.
Electronic Frontier Foundation,"Why EFF Doesn’t Support California Proposition 24"
Eligible to vote in California but not registered to vote? You can register to vote, and vote early, on the same day, at your county elections office, right up until the election. In Alameda County, that's the basement of the courthouse at 1225 Fallon St. in downtown Oakland. This is called conditional voter registration and means you will vote on a provisional ballot. As of today, this is your only option if you want to vote but are not registered at your current residential address.
State and federal offices
President/VP: Biden/Harris
Look, I get it. Biden is a rapist. Harris is a cop. Biden said I should be arrested and imprisoned because I'm an anarchist, which is a pretty fascist thing to say. If you want to sit this one out, I won't judge you. However, even if you can't stomach voting for one of the two viable presidential candidates, please vote in state and local elections, no matter where you live. State legislatures are where increasingly authoritarian Republicans gain legitimacy, and where you can stop them.
House of Representatives, 13th district: Barbara Lee
She's done some disappointing things lately that break from her previous record as one of the most anti-military members of Congress. I think she's still worth supporting as one of the best members of Congress. However, her Republican opponent is extremely unlikely to win, so if you sit this one out too, I won't judge you.
State senator, 9th district: Nancy Skinner
Skinner is a pretty middle-of-the-road Democrat. However, i don't want a libertarian (her only opponent) to win, no matter how unlikely that is.
State assembly, 15th district: Sara Brink
According to the Alameda County Green Party voter guide (linked at the end of this post), Brink "wishes her campaign to be a protest devoid of a strategic/organizational structure.” Considering who the incumbent is, I'd say that sounds just fine to me, and her positions on the issues are good.
Judicial Offices (the "Why do I have to vote on this?" section
Just one this time.Superior Court Judge, Office #2: Elena Condes
Both candidates are gay or lesbian, which is cool. However, I support Condes because her background in criminal defense law is likely to make her more sympathetic to people who are oppressed by the criminal justice system.
Statewide propositions
Proposition 14 (continuing bonds for stem cell research): No. This sounded good at first -- I mean, who doesn't like science? (Don't answer that.) But, the Alameda County Green Party points out: "There is nothing in the language of this proposition to ensure that profits generated from the research will be fully returned to the public..." That's a good reason not to subsidize private institutions, which is what this measure does. Also, the need for state funding of stem cell research is now much less than it was in 2004, since the Obama administration overturned the federal ban on stem cell research. Vote no -- this should never have been a ballot measure in the first place.Proposition 15 (property tax fairness): Yes! Commercial and industrial landlords don't pay enough in property taxes, and this measure will increase funding for public schools and community colleges by making the rich pay something closer to their fair share.
Proposition 16 (restore affirmative action): Yes! Affirmative action isn't the only necessary step to counter systematic racism, but it is a necessary step. Right-wingers terrified of a world in which white people don't enjoy unearned privilege have waged a mostly-successful campaign for decades to keep structural racism in place by resisting public policies that give white women and all people of color a fair chance. Voting yes on this proposition is a chance to fight back.
Proposition 17 (allow formerly incarcerated people to vote): Yes! Our current system is a grotesque civil rights violation; until we can abolish prisons, restoring voting rights to people who have completed a prison term is a necessary step. There's no excuse to deny the right to contribute to changing the criminal justice system to people who have been harmed by that system, the very people who need to have a voice in changing it.
Proposition 18 (allow some 17-year-olds to vote in some elections): Yes! Being 17 doesn't mean you aren't affected by laws and policies. There shouldn't be a minimum age for voting (if you're skeptical about 10-year-olds voting, think about who you trust more, upper-middle-class Baby Boomers who get all their news from Facebook, or 10-year-olds). But again, this is an incremental improvement.
Proposition 19 (reform property taxes to redistribute more wealth from the poor to the rich): No. This one is confusing, and I found a few helpful resources: an LA Times opinion piece and the report it links to, from the California Budget and Policy Center. Speaking of rich Boomers, this proposition is tailor-made to benefit them and deliver a giant fuck-you to the rest of us: the heading "Prop. 19 Expands Tax Breaks for Older, Mostly White Homeowners Who Tend to Be Economically Secure Already, Reducing the Equity of California’s Tax System” from CBPC says it all. Vote no.
Proposition 20 (more of the same failed tough-on-crime policy that's burdened us for decades): No. This proposition would increase criminal penalties for non-violent crime, further limit access to parole, and -- perhaps most alarmingly -- increase required DNA testing for incarcerated people and those on parole. Incarceration doesn't solve social problems. Vote no.
Proposition 21 (allow local governments to enact rent control): Yes! Housing is a human right, and this is an incremental improvement.
Proposition 22 (allow certain employers to treat employees as independent contractors without restriction): NO! Don't be fooled by tech company astroturfing campaigns that use sockpuppets pretending to be app-based ride drivers and claiming a "no" vote would threaten their livelihoods. Bosses' interests are diametrically opposed to employees' interests; if this was good for workers, Uber and Lyft wouldn't be funding it. Prop. 22 has been called the most dangerous development in terms of worker rights in history. Don't assume that only rideshare drivers will be affected: if this passes, it will be one step towards the libertarian dream world where workers have no rights. If you abstain from every other item on the ballot, please, still vote no on this one.
This is the GamerGate of ballot measures: Uber and Lyft have been funding massive harassment campaigns against major critics of Prop. 22, such as the law professor Veena Dubal -- and some of those critics just happen to be women of color. Coincidence, I'm sure. If you're a podcasty sort of person, and you're on the fence, check out an episode of the "Working People" podcast that's an interview with Dubal.
Proposition 23 (safety regulations for dialysis clinics): Yes. As an interfacility transport EMT, I spent some time in a number of dialysis clinics over the past year and a quarter, picking up and dropping off patients and getting reports from staff members. I can tell you firsthand that most of these clinics are sketchy as hell and need actual physicians, nurse practitioners, or physician assistants on-site, not just underpaid and exploited technicians. Do you want your blood circulating out of your body, into a machine, and back into your body without a doctor on-site? Most dialysis clinics are owned by two huge, highly profitable companies that are pouring their profits into campaigning against this measure. They claim it will hurt patients. Nothing could be further from the truth -- by analogy with Prop. 22, the interests of dialysis clinic owners are diametrically opposed to those of patients, who (from the owners' perspective) are mere gateways to the process of transferring public funds (since most dialysis patients are covered by Medicare and/or Medi-Cal) into private pockets. The big clinic owners claim this proposition would cause small independent clinics to shut down, but if it would actually do that, they would support it, since they don't want the competition. Protect vulnerable people by voting yes.
Proposition 24 (consumer privacy reform): No. I found this one confusing, but the EFF declined to endorse it, and while I don't trust the EFF on a lot of things, I trust them on this one. This proposition is funded by big tech companies, who don't have your best interests in mind; they want to extract your data, just like dialysis clinics want to extract insurance reimbursements with as little overhead as possible. The Green Party also pointed that Prop. 24 "takes privacy rule-making out of the hands of the state Department of Justice, instead creating a new state agency. Not only will this agency likely be underfunded by the initiative, it will be much more vulnerable to influence by the deep-pocket tech giants." The ACLU and the Council on American-Islamic Relations also oppose this measure, which is good enough reason for me to vote no.
Proposition 25 (bail reform): No. This one is hella misleading: a lot of us want to eliminate money bail, since if you believe incarcerating people accused of crimes will keep us safe (which I don't believe), it doesn't make sense to incarcerate based on personal income rather than the crime that was allegedly committed. But this proposition would replace cash bail with an algorithmic system, which should set off alarm bells in the mind of anybody who has ever used a computer. It's well-documented that "the algorithm said so" has been used over and over to enshrine bias and protect powerful people from accountability, including in the criminal justice system. This is a dangerous proposition, and we can reform bail without replacing it with an unaccountable, transparency-free software system.
Alameda County
Measure V: Yes. This measure would require people living in unincorporated Alameda County to pay their fair share for the county services they use disproportionately (compared to those of us in incorporated cities).Measure W: Yes. While sales taxes are regressive, and this measure increases the sales tax rate, it will provide additional funding for housing and mental health services that we badly need.
Measure Y: Yes; fund public schools.
AC Transit District Director, at-large: Chris Peeples. Peeples, the incumbent, uses a wheelchair, which isn't everything, but it's a step for disabled representation in public transportation. The Green Party voter guide swayed me on this one.
AC Transit District Director, Ward 2: Jean Walsh -- I'm not thrilled about either candidate, but Walsh seems like a stronger progressive, and is someone who relies on public transit herself.
BART Director, District 7: Lateefah Simon
I'll just quote here from the SF Chronicle (see sources at the end):
The marquee contest is Simon’s battle against Berkeley resident Sharon Kidd, a former member of BART’s Police Citizen Review Board whom Simon declined to reappoint in 2017. Kidd also served as a temporary staff assistant for the BART Police Department in 2018, and she has since volunteered to conduct interviews on police hiring panels."Sometimes change is inevitable," Kidd said of her candidacy. However, she described a platform that would largely preserve traditional law enforcement, adding police officers to quell crime and keeping ambassadors to make trains more welcoming.
"Many people that know my affiliation with BART, when we talk they want to see more officers," Kidd said. "But we can’t get more officers ... because of the media degrading police."
I can't trust a candidate who's backed by the police officers' association and who thinks "degrading police" is a bad thing. This election seems to be a proxy for whether you want more of the cops who murdered Oscar Grant to be free to kill Black people riding BART, or less of that. The choice is clear.
City of Oakland
Measure QQ (lower the voting age for school board elections to 16): Yes. At the bare minimum, public school students should be entitled to vote on the issues that affect them more than any adult.Measure RR (allow unlimited fines for ordinance and municipal code violations): No; this one is being touted as a social justice measure to make big corporations pay their share, there's too much discretion here that will inevitably be abused to extract excessive revenue from people for doing things like wearing a mask that conceals their identity or sitting on a public sidewalk.
Measure S1 (strengthen police review): Yes, I guess? This seems like the kind of police reform that ultimately fails to deliver results because police can't be reformed, but it seems like the right people support it.
Oakland city elections use ranked-choice voting.
City Council member, at-large: Rank Rebecca Kaplan only. Don't rank the other two candidates, one of whom (Johnson) is an abusive boss, and the other of whom (Sidebotham) is a bootlicker who only stands up for business owners and cops. Unfortunately, a process of elimination is what we've got here.
City Council member, District 1: Rank Tri Ngo #1, Dan Kalb #2. Don't rank Steph Dominguez Walton, who is on the ballot to try to seize this office for conservatives masquerading as Democrats. Tri Ngo is clearly the best candidate; Kalb, the incumbent is described by the Green Party as "the best of the progressive establishment sector of the local Democratic Party", which is probably the best we can do in North Oakland.
City Attorney: Rank Eli Ferran only. The incumbent, Barbara Parker, is pro-cop, and while Ferran doesn't say enough about police reform, he at least says the right things.
School Director, District 1: Stacy Thomas #1, Sam Davis #2. Do not rank Austin Dannhaus, who supports charter schools, a mechanism to sustain racial segregation and transfer public funds into private hands. Thomas has the best platform on restorative justice, while Davis says nothing about eliminating police from schools but does have a good stance on charter schools (they're bad).
Thanks to:
Alameda County Green Party voter guide (as usual, I disagree with some of their conclusions but their analyses are as thoughtful as it gets)
Space Cat Voter Guide for Oakland
Rachel Swan, "Policing debates, more than vanished ridership, could shape BART board elections", San Francisco Chronicle
Liam Dillon, "Who wins and who loses with California property tax measure Proposition 19 LA Times.
California Budget & Policy Center, "Proposition 19: Creates a Complicated Property Tax Scheme and Reinforces Racial Inequities in California"
Maximillian Alvarez, "California's Prop 22 Would Be a Disaster for Workers Everywhere" (podcast episode). In These Times.
Electronic Frontier Foundation,"Why EFF Doesn’t Support California Proposition 24"