California Voter Foundation President Kim Alexander is celebrating 25 years since the organization was ‘relaunched’ in 1994 – she sat down with John Howard and Tim Foster of the CW podcast to talk about the history of CVF and what her top concerns are a quarter century after the kickoff. (listen here)
Excerpt:
Skeptics might call them do-gooders. But in today’s world—when we could surely use as much good as possible—what’s wrong with that?
To highlight the 30th anniversary of SN&R, we want to recognize 30 people who embody our mission: To have a positive impact on our communities and make them better places to live.
On purpose, the vast majority on this list are not high-profile politicians, the rich and powerful or other bold names. Many come from the nonprofit world, not well-known to the general public but working every day to help the less fortunate and to make public policy smarter and more humane. Some have been in the trenches for many years, while others are just emerging as leaders.
Like any list like this, it’s rather subjective. There are many others in the Sacramento region who are doing yeoman’s work and also deserving of praise.
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Kim Alexander
President of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, she’s a strong advocate for more informed voters having a bigger say, and for voters across the state having equal access to participate. Her group is particularly focused on making sure that technology helps—not harms—our democracy.
On November 8th, two days after the November General Election, CVF president Kim Alexander participated in a candid post-election discussion hosted by California Groundbreakers at Ruhstaller Brewing in downtown Sacramento. A podcast of the event is available online.
Nearly 20 million Californians are registered to vote in Tuesday's election. That's more than 78 percent of eligible voters and it's the highest number of registered voters ever in the state. Forum takes your voter registration and Election Day questions and we'll check in on how smoothly the voting process is going in the Bay Area. (31 minute audio program)
Excerpt:
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —
Election Day is here. And, California voters may be making some mistakes that could disqualify their ballot.
Voters were asked to check their voter registration status and their polling sites before Tuesday so they don’t run into problems Election Day.
Kim Alexander, president of the California Voters Foundation, breaks down 5 common mistakes people make when voting:
1) Forgetting to Sign Mail-In-Ballot Envelope
The biggest mistake voters make with their mail-in ballots is they forget to sign and date the envelopes.
If the mail-in ballot envelope is not signed and dated, the ballot cannot be validated.
2) Signature is Mismatched
On Election Eve, CVF President Kim Alexander joined KCRA TV News anchor Gulstan Dart on Facebook Live to answer last-minute voting questions. (Video)
Kim Alexander from the California Voter Foundation goes over the essential details and changes to the process on the final day of voter registration in California. (listen to segment)
Excerpt:
Kim Alexander is worried. The president of the California Voter Foundation is afraid that on Tuesday Sacramento County voters will stroll to the polling places they have always used, find them shuttered and won't have any idea where to vote.
"I am nervous," she said Monday. "I'm hoping for the best and preparing for confusion."
Alexander has worked with the county over the past year to implement a new voting system, which replaces the county's 550 neighborhood polling places with 78 countywide voting centers, dozens of drop-off sites and an emphasis on voting by mail.
Sacramento is the largest of the five counties participating in the pilot program approved by state legislators in 2016 as part of the new state Voters Choice Act. The other counties are San Mateo, Nevada, Napa and Madera counties.
Excerpt:
Improving voter confidence in the elections process is part of Kim Alexander's mission at the nonprofit California Voter Foundation.
"When they say the Russians are going to come back, I don't think they're kidding about that," Alexander said.
Despite the threat of hacking in the 2018 election, Alexander said California is much better protected than other states because of paper ballots.
"The combination of a paper-based voting system and routine auditing of election results means that if something happened to our vote count and someone tried to intervene with the election, we would likely detect it," Alexander said. "And we would be able to recover from it."
Re: “Here’s how Jerry Brown can help protect vulnerable people, voting integrity and local control” (Editorials, Sept. 28) and “Brown should help ensure election integrity by signing this bill” (Another View, Sept. 30): With recent news of Russian scanning of state technology websites, this is not the time to reduce California’s manual 1 percent audit practice, which is designed to detect errors or manipulations in vote-counting software.
Assembly Bill 840 would invalidate a recent San Diego County court ruling (Lutz v. Vu) that all vote-by-mail ballots must be subject to inclusion in the 1 percent post-election manual tally, a ruling which confirms current practice of many California counties, including Inyo, Santa Clara and San Francisco.
