Last Tuesday, I went to vote in our special election. Every other time that I've voted since coming out here, I've voted at a public park/recreation center about 4 blocks north of my apartment. I went there again then and was told that the voting districts had been redone and that my street was only covered at that precinct down to the 3300 block (I'm in the 3100 block). After consulting the map quickly, I went to what I thought was the correct precinct: a charter school about half a block south and two blocks west of my apartment. It turns out that they had my street, but with the north end stopping at the 3000 block. Instead, I had to go to a precinct approximately 1.5 miles west of my apartment. Part of me wonders if this bizarre gerrymandering is due to the ethnic makeup of the 3000-3300 block (I'm the ethnically caucasian person on the block), but I suspect it is just incompetence.

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Today, the California Supreme Court issued its ruling on Proposition 8 (which outlawed same-sex marriage in the state). They ruled that it the proposition was legal which in effect maintains the ban. Frankly, while I hoped that it might go otherwise, this is the correct ruling. Both arguments presented were incredibly weak and, in the interest of a well functioning judiciary, should have been rejected. Hopefully, someone will get a nullification proposition on a mid-term ballot where it will almost certainly succeed. Unfortunately, I fear that such a proposition might require the two-thirds vote in both legislative houses as it could be interpreted as a "revision". Luckily, looking at the original results from a demographic perspective seems to indicate that, if nothing else, the problem will be solved actuarially.

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