Talk the Vote

You might've heard that California's presidential primary, for once, could actually matter this time around. But that doesn't necessarily mean you can just stroll into a poll this June and weigh in.

The latest San Diego Decides is all about voting — what needs to happen before you can vote in the primary, how voting is changing and some of the controversies surrounding how votes are counted.

Hosts Sara Libby and Ry Rivard speak with Rep. Susan Davis, who has for years been pushing a bill that would allow any eligible voter to vote by mail. Californians can vote by mail easily, but folks in many other states have to jump through onerous hurdles like producing a doctor's note or proving they'll be on vacation on Election Day.

“If you actually get sick on Election Day, you probably didn’t know you were going to get sick, which means you probably didn’t go to the doctor in order to get a permission slip so that you can vote by mail,” Davis said.

Also on the show: Vince Hall, executive director of the Future of California Elections, a group charged with modernizing the voting process in California.

Hall talks about some of the latest reforms to the voting process and why you still won't be able to vote online anytime soon.

"With paper ballots, you always have accountability, you have an audit system that allows you to essentially recreate the election, precinct by precinct, based on demonstrable physical evidence of what happened," Hall said. "But when you’re talking about digits in a computer, you don’t have that permanent record, that permanent accountability, with the way the internet currently functions.”

Hall closes with some sobering statistics about California voter participation: “In 2014, the voter participation rate in California was so bad, that the average voter was older than the average Californian’s parents. So it was really a grandparent electorate. And in our state, in that year, an 18 or 19 year-old was more likely to get arrested than to vote in a state-wide election.”

The latest proposal to go under the microscope is a measure that would eliminate charter schools — all of them.

Sara talks with a supporter of the measure about why she believes the plan is viable.

• Ry shares some lore from his home state of West Virgina, which has a history of alleged voter fraud.

• Sara's vibing The Return of the '90s: TLC, O.J., the Clintons and "Full House" are all back.