LA County Moves To Provide Voters More Information On Political Candidates

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a proposal to publish candidate statements online in addition to inside printed sample ballots, a move that will dramatically reduce candidates’ cost of getting their statements in front of voters.

Right now, many candidates do not buy space in sample ballots because they say it's cost prohibitive.

The cost is more than $200,000 to get each countywide candidate’s 200-word statement in the sample ballot, according to Registrar Dean Logan. The fee is based on printing and mailing costs to send the guide to 5.6 million registered voters, he said.

Under the plan, the Registrar of Voters would publish candidates' statements online for a fee of about $280, starting with the March 2024 primary election.

“It is a no-brainer,” Logan told LAist. The move comes as voters increasingly obtain their information about candidates online.

More info for voters

Voting rights advocate hailed the move.

“I think it's really important,” to have candidates statements side by side online, said Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation. Many times, she said, the only information people have about local races are the statements.

“When you get into countywide offices like assessor or sheriff, it's hard for voters to make informed decisions,” Alexander said.

She added that there's another reason to make it easier for candidates to post their statements on the registrar’s website.

“Those candidate statements are an excellent accountability tool for voters,” she said. “You want to have a record of what candidates promised they’d do if elected.”

Typically, fewer than 20% of the total number of candidates pay to get their statements into the sample ballot, according to Logan.

In 2016, a new law allowed local election officials to accept and publish electronic statements from candidates for local, nonpartisan offices. Last year, L.A. County ran a pilot program for countywide offices “to increase voter accessibility and create a more equitable playing field for candidates,” Logan said in a report to the board.

Eighty-one percent of eligible candidates participated. The statements received more than 300,000 page views.

Logan said the printed sample ballot pointed people to the online statements. “The most important part is: How do you get the word out to voters that this is available online?” he said.

'A fantastic idea'

Chris Darden, who is running for a judicial seat in the March 2024 election, said he thinks the online statements are a "fantastic idea." Darden was one of the deputy district attorneys who prosecuted O.J. Simpson in 1994 and 1995.

“The public doesn’t know a whole lot about the judicial candidates,” he said. “In a non-partisan race like a judicial race, there just isn’t a lot out there.”

The registrar anticipates collecting approximately $229,000 this fiscal year and an average of $458,000 in subsequent years, covering the entire cost of the program.

Logan said the next step is to explore whether it is feasible to expand the program beyond the county races to local jurisdictions, including cities, school districts and special districts.