THE LWVC PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
During the campaign for the recall election, a gubernatorial candidate publicly complained that the League of Women Voters excluded him from its debates. Many of you emailed me to express your concerns. Although I tried to respond individually to each of you, I realize that there must be others who question the League's stance.
For the recall election we had 135 certified candidates on the ballot-candidates from all seven political parties recognized by the Secretary of State, and dozens of candidates with no party affiliation. To be fair to all the candidates, the criteria for the debates had to be objective and to ensure that televised forums did not include 135 candidates.
Whenever there are multiple candidates for an elected office, it is necessary to set some quantifiable and impartial criteria for deciding who will be included in a forum. For statewide contests, the League usually uses a percentage of support indicated in one or more respected polls with a cutoff date as close to the event as is technically possible.
For this election the percentage was set significantly lower than usual to take into account the more widely divided support among the large list. The rules for each forum were set up in collaboration with the other partners in the events, and the candidates received letters in advance advising them of the criteria for inclusion. Once the criteria have been agreed upon and sent to all the candidates, it is unfair to the other candidates to change the rules because we would like to see a particular candidate or candidates included.
League members take pride in our long and respected history as a non-partisan voter education organization. We do not arbitrarily include or exclude any candidate based on party affiliation or lack thereof. We are committed to educating voters as fully as possible about candidates. Every candidate was invited to post information on our Smart Voter Web site, and the short list of candidates listed in the supplementary material for the Easy Voter Guide, in which the League is a partner, included the candidate who was dissatisfied with our policy.
This was an historic special election. In it the League members worked hard to continue the mission we started more than 80 years ago - strengthening democracy by acting as an unbiased resource that both candidates and voters can rely on.
--Jacqueline Jacobberger, President
The League of Women Voters of California
California VOTER, October 2003
