Random Letter Drawing

One of the overlooked events on the election calendar is the random letter drawing by the Secretary of State’s office.

The logic behind the event goes like this; some voters are relatively uninformed. They don’t research the issues, the candidates, or (sometimes) even what the actual duties of a given office are. Although voters usually know who they support for the offices at the top of the ballot (President, U.S. Senate, and Congress), they may have absolutely no idea who they support by the time they work their way down to Municipal Utility District Board, Irrigation District Board, or school board.

Because the voter in these cases would be just a little bit more likely to throw their vote at the first name on the ballot, it’s important to rotate the order of the names (to prevent giving an unfair advantage to the Bealls, Conways, and Donnellys of the world at the expense of the Wieckowskis, Yamadas, and Yees.

Thus, 82 days before each election in California, the Secretary of State’s office draws the letters of the alphabet to have a unique order for the coming election. Today, as the 82nd day before the June Primary, was the day. The results, as written on the whiteboard at the drawing today, were U-N-A-D-I-V-X-W-Q-G-O-Z-L-T-R-K-S-J-H-M-C-B-F-P-Y-E.

You totally needed to know that, didn’t you?