LETTER FROM SAN FRANCISCO
Here they are ! The ballots for the midterms (the midterm elections) have arrived in California homes. With their corollary: the voter’s manual. Some 258 pages for the English version (There is also a version in Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Tagalog, Thai and Vietnamese). To be read before November 8, the date of the ballot. Not to mention the prospectuses of the candidates arrived in the mailboxes.
Voting in the United States is a complicated exercise. This is not a question that the voter is brought to decide, but a whole series: which deputy, which senator, which local parliamentarians, which judges, which treasurer of the State, which members of the office of education, superintendents public education… In California, there are dozens of referendums put to the vote by the assembly, the local authorities or the citizens. This year in San Francisco, the voter has 55 boxes to check (in blue or black ink). Thirty-four concern candidates, 21 referenda.
Fortunately, it is no longer necessary to travel to the polling station. The bulletin arrives by post (since the pandemic, it is no longer even necessary to request it). In fact, it is a set of five cards 49 cm long by 22 cm wide, printed on both sides. Fulfilling one’s civic duty is like a marathon, it is better to settle down comfortably. Some organize parties with friends. Between beer and chicken wings, we check the boxes instead of watching the American football game.
Nancy Pelosi again candidate
Each political club has slipped its recommendations into the mailboxes. Here is the voter’s guide published by the Harvey Milk Club, with a header on a pink background: it is the democratic LGBTQ group. Not to be confused with the list of official Democratic Party picks. The opinion of the League of Angry Voters (the “pissed off voters”) occupies an insert of four pages format 60 cm by 36 cm: the voters are very unhappy. The alliance for social housing is engaged in a full-scale attack on candidate Joel Engardio, against the backdrop of one-story houses crushed by an Eiffel Tower: the candidate wants to make Sunset (the suburb of San Francisco which borders the Pacific ) “a district of Paris”, she accuses. Horror !
On card 1, the personalities. The governor, Gavin Newsom, candidate for his re-election, has little chance of being beaten. Incidentally, we finally learn the name of his rival, Brian Dahle, a local senator and upstate farmer who devoted himself to representing the Republican Party. Outgoing representative, subject to re-election in the 11e riding: Nancy Pelosi. Reviled by the right, the speaker (president) of Congress is a popular figure in San Francisco, where she was re-elected in 2020 with 72.5% of the vote. After the attack suffered by her husband, Friday, October 28, she is not likely to be less. At 82, however, she is considering not remaining in the post of speaker.
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