CALIFORNIA

Better Than Before!

News from our Friends!

Please enjoy the latest from our friends at the Healthy California Campaign! We have the second installment of the Schoolhouse Rock-style campaign video.  Please share with all your friends! 

Click on the cartoon, or click here!



 Here are links to Facebook, twitter and Vimeo where you can download both videos.

Thanks to the Campaign, Cliff Tasner, and all who made this great video!

Now for some crowing by the Fresno Chapter! They made a law in California!

When the Fresno Chapter observed the canvass of the ballots in Fresno County after the June 2016 Primary, they discovered a critical vulnerability in the Registrar's methods.  After the election, by law, 1% of the precincts' ballots must be manually counted as a check of the ballots tabulated by the system. Those precincts must be randomly selected by drawing and that drawing observed by the public.  It was plain, although 'understood' rather than specified, that this drawing had to be done after the election. However, we learned that our County Registrar, Brandi Orth, had selected those precincts TWO MONTHS PRIOR to the Primary! When confronted about it, she was unimpressed that this was a vulnerability, and claimed that it required a lot more work when performed after the election!  

The Chapter got busy. We first checked the Code and contacted the Secretary of State, who issued a directive, but not in time for that election. We then polled all 58 Registrars.  54 Registrars had used common sense and performed the random selection after close of the polls, while 4 did it before, with Fresno being by far the worst offender. The Elections Code had to be fixed so this could not happen again!

Not having an Assembly Member in our area who could be relied upon at that time to introduce a bill, we contacted Mimi Kennedy! Mimi immediately reached out to her Assembly Member, Adrin Nazarian, who worked with us, and introduced the Bill.

It's the PDA Fresno Chapter Bill! 

AB 1154 was passed by the Assembly and Senate and signed into law by Governor Brown on July 21, 2017.

We want to express our deep appreciation to Mimi and to Assembly Member Nazarian.  This could not have happened without them.

And a shout out from the Fresno Chapter to all you California Chapters!  Don't let anybody tell you it can't be done.  

And we will do it with SB 562! It will be BETTER THAN BEFORE!