Voice for Democracy

Newsletter of Californians for Electoral Reform

Winter 2006

Humboldt Voters Association

The Humboldt Voters' Association (HVA) sprang into action on January 3rd as the result of separating its predecessor, the Voters' Confidence Committee (VCC), into two organizations, both devoted to agendas of electoral reform but each pursuing different areas of primary interest.

HVA will devote its energy primarily to implementing ranked voting on both the local and state level and to working with local elections officials toward improving the entire electoral process in Humboldt County.  VCC, on the other hand, will continue in its role of watchdog by focusing on the issues of voting machine certification and ballot security with an overall goal of implementing open source software.

HVA will also support and work with the local and statewide organizations dedicated to bringing about effective electoral reform at all levels of government.  A website is now available at http://www.humvote.org, and the email address for the group is .  Dave Ogden and Scott Menzies, two of the co-founders of HVA, are also members of CfER.  Scott can be reached at and Dave is at .

In addition to taking care of some organizational details, HVA attended the first meeting of Humboldt County’s Elections Advisory Committee on January 5.  At the suggestion of the Board of Supervisors, county Clerk/Recorder Carolyn Crnich and Elections Administrator Lindsay McWilliams hosted this event, which was attended by more than a score of citizens from many parts of the county (Humboldt County is larger than the state of Delaware!).  The overall consensus of those present was to restore the voters’ confidence in the electoral process.  This will best be accomplished by coming together in a spirit of cooperation and bringing as much talent to the table as possible to address concerns and solve problems surrounding the electoral process at the local level.

The group agreed that this could very well be the seed for a local, county-level Citizens’ Assembly similar to that proposed for the state by Assembly Members Canciamilla and Richman.  A list of priorities will be addressed and future meetings have been tentatively scheduled for the first Thursday of every month.  HVA will remain a very active participant in this committee, and further news about its activities will be shared on a regular basis through this newsletter.

Dave Ogden