Denny v. Arntz
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In November 2018, the voters in San Francisco passed Proposition A, the Embarcadero Seawall Earthquake Safety Bond, by 82.7 percent of the popular vote. The following spring, Denny filed a lawsuit to set aside Proposition A, alleging that the ballot materials were not fair and impartial, and citing Elections Code section 16100. Specifically, he claimed that the digest prepared by the Ballot Simplification Committee was not impartial; the city should not have included paid ballot arguments in the Voter Information Pamphlet; the ballot question did not include the phrase “shall the measure . . . be adopted”; the ballot question was not impartial and the title should not have been printed in upper case letters; and the ballot question was too long. The trial court dismissed without leave to amend.
The court of appeal affirmed. Although Denny labeled his claim statutory misconduct by defendants under section 16100(c), his complaint is actually a challenge to the sufficiency and impartiality of Proposition A’s digest and ballot materials, and that is a claim that can only be raised pre-election. The voters were provided with the full text of Proposition A, so it is assumed that any alleged discrepancies in the ballot materials did not affect the voters’ ability to vote intelligently.
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