While I'm Enjoying California Sunshine,Matt Buxton Is Covering More Redistricting Twists And Turns

 Basically, Matt's saying that Judge Matthews' order wasn't a final order and that he's remanded things back for the Board to fix.  And since it isn't a final order, it can't be appealed.  But they can ask for a review from the Supreme Court.  But it might mean that the changes would be in effect for the next election rather than the Board's map.  

I'm meeting the SF grandkids (and their parents) for dinner in a couple of hours, so I'll just refer you to Matt's Twitter feed for more details

[UPDATED Feb 18, 2022  10:20pm:  Here's Matt Buxton's newsletter on this.  It seems to have a bit more than the Twitter feed.  I'm glad Matt's working on this.

The cat of the house where we spent last night.

Checking Alaska's Proposed Election Regulation Changes

My wife had the section of the ADN that I wanted to read on Sunday.  So I picked up the Classified Section.  It had a long notice:

"NOTICE OF PROPOSED CHANGES TO IMPLEMENT BALLOT MEASURE 2 AND MAKE CLARIFYING CHANGES IN THE REGULATIONS OF THE DIVISION OF ELECTIONS"

This link gives you that notice posted on the State's public notice site.

Given that lots of State Legislatures are busy passing laws intended to disenfranchise voters, this seemed like something I should look at a bit more carefully.  This is definitely one of those places where "the devil is in the details" applies.  

I've taken some time in the last couple of days to mesh the proposed changes into the body of the current regulations.  I've put the proposed changes in red so it's easy to find them.  The whole thing is at the bottom of this post.  

Things To Know About The Proposed Changes

• The announcement lists all the changes to be made.  To be clear, it tells us what needs to be done, but it doesn't tell us the new language, so we don't know what they intend to actually say.
• Most of the changes seem to be apolitical technical changes because of 
• passage of Proposition 2  which (1) changed the primary to be a single election with all candidates for each position running against all the others, and (2) changing the general election to ranked choice voting
• State is no longer using Accu-vote machines, so all references to those machines are to be deleted
• US Supreme Court Decision   Shelby Co v. Holder to no longer require preclearance of changes in election laws for Alaska and 15 other states.
• Some changes appear to be substantive and while they are simply spelling out the steps to determine the practical implementation of Prop 2, in some cases the wording could potentially directly or indirectly impact the elections, such as:
• Add 6 AAC 25.071 to specify when and how votes for write-in candidates will be counted.
• Add 6 AAC 25.072 to define duplicate rankings and determine how they will be counted.  
• Change 6 AAC 25.225 to determine the process for filling a vacancy in the candidacy for lieutenant governor.
• Change 6 AAC 25.240 to remove the specific number of petition booklets that the division will issue. [Current number is "500 or less."  Minimally they should change  'less' to 'fewer.']
• Change 6 AAC 25.683 to update a statutory reference; allow someone with a power of attorney to cancel a voter’s registration; remove a reference to selecting a primary ballot; and allow a special power of attorney to include the power to cancel a voter’s registration.  [Currently someone with power of attorney can register folks and help with absentee voting.  I understand the need to remove deceased voters from the rolls, but my sense is that this could also be used badly.  Think Brittany Spears.  I haven't heard the arguments, but at this point I think Vital Statistics should share deaths with the Registrar.  Given this political climate, I can see people with this power disenfranchising people they disagree with politically.  I don't know, just raising questions here.]
• Many changes I'm still trying to figure out what they mean such as 
• Add 6 AAC 25.069 to determine that the general election ballot will include space for one write-in candidate per race, except that the races for president and vice-president will not allow write-in candidates.
• Some I have a giant "WHY?" for.  There are probably good reasons but it seems odd.  For example: 
• Add 6 AAC 25.195 to specify that ranked-choice tabulation will begin the 15th day after the election, with only first-choice results reported before then.  [I'm guessing this has to do with the need to know the last place candidates in each race, because then the second place vote for the last candidate is given to the next ranked candidate. They may be assuming that you need all the absentee votes in before going to this process.  And that may be true in some or even most cases as they need to know the losing candidate before reassigning the 2nd place votes.  But I suspect in some cases you'd know before every last ballot is in.]

I'm not saying that there is anything underhanded going on.  I'm just trying to make sure there isn't.  I  haven't had time to think through and raise these kinds of questions for all the changes yet.  I'm hoping also to clarify some of my question with the Division of Elections.  

But in the meantime, I thought I'd put this up so other people don't have to duplicate this effort and can just jump in and look at what's there.  It would be nice to break this down so different people are looking at different parts.  Not everyone needs to look at everything.  

Some Notes On My Method For Doing This

• Most changes apply to a single section only, but some apply to several (such as every time they mention Accu-vote they need to delete it.) I repeat the red changes for all the sections they apply to.
• When there are multiple changes to a single section, I give each a bullet so you know there are more than one.
• Some are changes to a section ("Remove"  or "Change") and some are actually newly numbered sections ("Add")  I put the ADD where it would go.
• I've put the proposed changes in red so it's easy to find them.  

The Proposed Changes Embedded in the Current Regulations:

Remove repealed statutory authority in 6 AAC 27.035 and 6 AAC 27.150.

Alaska Election Code Propos... by Steve

Reading On The Bus, Five Modes Of Transport Yesterday

Like the other school days in San Francisco, we left with the kids at 7am to catch the bus.  We got them settled and took the bus back.




Lots of the San Francisco bus stops have electronic monitors that tell you pretty accurately how long it will be for  the next two buses arrive.

I took this picture because of the woman reading on the bus.  That's fairly uncommon nowadays.  Most people are busy with their cell phones.  How many screens can you see in this picture?  (I see five, not counting the guy with the earbuds who had just put his away.)

I decided to blur the face of the woman looking right at me.  I learned last year in an OLÉ class on photo journalism that one benefit (for photographers) of taking pictures with your cell phone is that people tend not to pay attention.  But she seems to have figured it out.  And I don't know think people should have their pictures 'stolen' if they don't want it to happen.  So I blurred her somewhat.  She then started to do her eye makeup.

Next was BART to SFO.  There are lots of places, it seems, where there are escalators up, but not down.  With my tricky knee and a suitcase and backpack, that was slow.  And I couldn't find the elevator.   If you click on the image below, you can see it much more clearly.  These are the email messages I got from Alaska Airlines (in chronological order):

• Your flight is on time
• Your gate has changed
• Your flight is delayed

The delay turned out to be nearly an hour.  That seems to happen a lot out of SFO.   In Seattle it seemed like the cloud cover was down to about 30 feet when we landed at SEATAC and snow was blowing horizontally.

Fortunately, our two roll on suitcases were already coming onto the baggage carousel as we got there and the snow wasn't coming down either.





We got to the Link light rail station at the airport where an employee was telling people the train was no longer going past Pioneer Square.  To go further you had to get off and transfer to another train.  But that's where we were getting off anyway.

This construction began January 4. They're adding new lines and you can find out more here.










Then we walked down the hill a few blocks to the ferry terminal.  There's been construction there, it seems, forever.  I told J I'd take both suitcases up the elevator if she took the steps and got the tickets.  We were getting very close to departure time and they usually shut off the walk on passengers five minutes before the ferry leave.  But there was no elevator to be seen.  Grrrrrr.  As I start to haul my suitcase up while being careful not to move in a way that would cause pain in my knee, a young man reached out to help me carry it up.  I thanked him and pointed him to J who was just ahead of me.  By the time I got to the ticket booth, J had our tickets and we managed to get the 4:15 ferry.

It felt good to sit down and look out the window with the part of the Seattle skyline that includes the Space Needle, not to mention the reflections in the glass.

Finally, on the other side, our son-in-law was waiting and took J's suitcase and we walked to the market where our daughter and granddaughter were waiting.  They told us the elevator was in a new place now.   We decided that we'd just all get something from their take out offerings and eat in their modest dining space.

Today I walked with my daughter and granddaughter to her school.  Saturday she has a birthday, which is why we stopped here on the way home.

Been Busy - New Kitchen Floor, Not Yet Winter, Fog

It's November 11, 2019.  We haven't had any snow in town.   Friday when I went to my OLÉ Homeless class, it was sunny and comfy and the snow was disappearing on the mountains.

And this yarrow flower is hanging in there outside in the yard.

A few times things have gotten frosty,

like Saturday when I rode over to UAA for the Citizens Climate Lobby meeting.







It was also foggy that day.

Our delayed winter has me not wanting to stop biking and Saturday didn't offer any problems, but I decided to break down and get studded tires for my old mountain bike that I've used for winters.
 I didn't realize how speedy [spendy] studded tires are.  It cost more than the old bike, which I'd gotten at a YMCA auction maybe ten years ago.  But if they keep me from breaking an arm, they'll be worth it.  This bike's old wheels were perfectly fine in packed snow, but as winters have gotten warmer, there are a lot more icy days.  We'll see how often I actually use the bike and how well the studs work.

This morning was probably the coldest this fall - about 27˚F outside.












Meanwhile, inside has been rather chaotic.  Our old carpet is wearing out, very noticeably in spots.
And the linoleum in the kitchen was getting yellow, so we went for a new floor there too.  But they said to do the kitche/dining area first.  And that had to be shipped up from Outside.  We've been waiting for a few months now,  It looked pretty bad from time to time as TK determined that the old floor had to go so the kitchen wouldn't be higher than the carpet with the new bamboo panels.  

But he cleaned everything up pretty well each evening.  But there are tools all over the place.









But we're almost done.  This was actually Saturday night when we put up a temporary folding table up.

This side was finished today, but there's a little more on the kitchen side where a wire to two outlets got cut.  Fortunately, the electrician is scheduled for Wednesday to do some work on our old fixtures and putting in LED fixtures and other trickier jobs.

So we've juggling things a bit this last week.  And I'm working on more film festival posts.  The documentaries look great.  I'm just going through the features and they look interesting too.  My enthusiasm has been renewed and I'm looking forward to the festival which begins Dec. 6.  There's a new AIFF 2019 tab under the header.  Good night.

Blog maintenance takes up a certain amount of time and is generally not visible to most readers.  Most technical things are pretty static now.  Every now and then I try something new - like I have a post with a gif I made on my iPhone ready to be posted, except I'm not sure it it's working right and it appears I'll have to actually post it to find out.  I also had a lot of issues trying to post from my new iPad while in Argentina this summer.  It didn't get along with Blogger at all.  I thought about post for others with similar problems - tricks I learned to make it better, but my basic advice is don't even try if you can help it.  It's a pain.

Then there are updates to old posts.  I can't do this all the time and I really hope that people look at the dates of posts they read online and realize something six years old might be out of date.  But some things seem worth updating.  Here are a couple of recent updates.


Juries  - The LATimes had an article today about a US supreme court case challenging Louisiana's former majority rule for juries.  (The voters overturned that in favor of unanimous decisions in 2018, but the case was 2016.)  I updated a 2017 post on whether hung juries reflect the US cultural divide, which mentioned that Louisiana and Oregon both had majority rule juries.  So I've updated that post.

Hong Kong - I also added a link to an article by a Chinese Human Rights worker to my recent post on Hong Kong.    I also got messages from one former Hong Kong student and one former Beijing student saying my post on Hong Kong was generally accurate, but they didn't want me to quote them.

And then there is following up on comments by readers.  Often there really isn't anything for me to add.  Do the commenters want me to acknowledge their comments?  Or do they look at my follow up comments as my trying to have the last word on something?  If I don't have more to add, I just leave it, especially if I'm particularly busy.

But some comments are particularly welcome because they add information I didn't know about.
For example, a comment by Dennis on my post the other day about whether the airport couldn't get the runway finished faster, gave details about how the grooves in runways have to be 3mm wide and spaced about 25mm apart.  But then he was vague about how long it would take - "a long time."  My comment asked for specifics of 'a long time.'  

And I realize now, as I'm writing this, that I probably should have put a link in that post to one I did last year about the widening and repairing the north-south runway.  So I'll do that now.

I Keep Forgetting, There's No Saturday Newspaper Anymore

I went out to get the newspaper this morning.  I looked around, but it wasn't there.  Then I remembered.  There is no longer a Saturday edition of the Alaska Dispatch News.

Probably, lots of people reading this blog gave up paper editions long ago.  While other people, judging by letters to the editor, are miffed that they are paying for a subscription that now skips  Saturday.

Every print newpaper is struggling to find a way to make itself profitable.  The ADN has the best short term model - it's owned by a billionaire.  But that's not a sustainable model, and the readers are at the mercy of the owner's political and social tastes.

As a local blogger for the last ten years, I've seen the improvements in the ADN.  When I covered the legislature in 2010, the ADN rotated reporters to Juneau every three weeks or so and my coverage of the legislature really had no competition in Anchorage.  When I covered the Alaska Redistricting Board, 95% of the time, I was the only media there.  When I called the ADN editor and asked why they weren't covering the redistricting board, he said, "Because Seth is in Juneau." Seth was their one reporter for state news.

Fortunately, the ADN now has a lot more reporters covering state and local affairs.  And they've recently added a weekly Arctic section.  We're lucky to have all that extra content, even it is now squeezed into six days instead of seven.

If only Facebook and Twitter each shut down one day a week.  I suspect everyone's lives would greatly improve.