It's all such a stupid waste of time and money, the entire process is nakedly undemocratic, and the California Democratic Party managed to screw it all up even more.
First, we're having a recall election because 1.7 million people signed a petition for one, which crossed the legal threshold of 12% of the count of people who voted in the last election. That's an INSANELY low number. Newsom got 61% of the popular vote in 2018, 7.7 million votes! Why should a tiny 12% minority be able to force a recall election, which wastes millions of my tax dollars and steals focus from actual legislative goals? Now it's clear that some of that legislation is going to need to go toward amending the recall process.
Second, obviously the Republicans are exploiting the opportunity by running their worst people, who would never be able to get 50.1% of a real vote in a real election. Here, they don't have to. If "Question 1: Should the Governor be recalled?" gets 50.1% "YES" votes, from Republicans, Democrats who don't like Newsom, independents who feel like they don't get a voice in "normal" elections, and people who just want to watch the world burn, then "Question 2: Who should replace the Governor?" becomes active. And at that point, majority is no longer necessary--whomever is in the lead will become the Governor! So we have a very plausible scenario where "Yes" squeaks out a win, and Larry Elder, a far-right-wing radio host, gets 20% of the replacement votes and becomes Governor. And that's 20% of a total number of voters that will likely be FAR smaller than the number that voted in the 2018 election that Newsom won.
The whole process seems design to encourage the tyranny of the minority, which is a concept Republicans have become expert at exploiting.
Finally, what does the California Democratic Party do? THEY MAKE IT WORSE. They discourage any reasonable Democrats from getting on the ballot for Question 2, and proclaim that Democratic voters should leave that second question blank. Due respect to
@Pale Rider, but that's a terrible plan. This is effectively a ranked-choice election, where your first choice should be "NO on Recall" and your second choice should be "But IF Recall passes... this is the best replacement." Yet because of the party's decision, we have no good (or even qualified or competent) Democratic replacement options! Why not get the Lieutenant Governor on the ballot, and have her tie her campaign to Newsom? Most "Question 1: YES" votes will be Republicans, so if Democrats leave Question 2 blank, most of the overall votes for anyone on Question 2 will be Republicans too, and Larry Elder is nearly guaranteed to win. A campaign to vote "NO" on 1, but for Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis on 2, seems like a simple enough message to sell... but they didn't do that.
Anyway, after much back and forth, I ended up voting for some YouTube idiot named Kevin Paffrath. He's unqualified, but he seems to be leading in some polls on the Democratic side, and I couldn't in good conscience vote in any way that could directly help a Republican to win.
