Excerpt:

No one is an expert on every subject.

And yet, California’s political process frequently calls upon voters to weigh in on complex issues concerning criminal justice, public health, economics, the environment, just to name a few.

The good news is, voting is not a test, says Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation. If you skip boxes on the ballot, you will not get an “F” in voting.

Alexander is beating the drum on encouraging people to vote.

“People don’t like to do things they feel they’re not good at,” she said. “I worry people feel they’re not good at voting.”

Faced with a long list of propositions with implications they don’t fully grasp, some voters’ impulse is to vote no, which is something critics of California’s direct democracy process advise as a way of voicing disapproval of it.