Judicious intervention  

With Arnold Schwartzenegger, Arianna Huffington, and now Cruz Bustamante putting their names in the recall hat, not much attention has been paid to the California Supreme Court:

Invoking the specter of a Florida-style polling debacle, the governor's lawyers claimed voters will be disenfranchised because counties do not have enough money or time to properly prepare for the October 7 election. They also want the court to allow Davis to add his own name to the list of replacements on the recall ballot - a list that appears to be growing daily. About 300 gubernatorial wannabes have taken out papers in advance of Saturday's official filing deadline.

It's quite possible the court will end this before it gets started - for one thing, it could decide that if Davis is recalled, Bustamante (as Lt Governor) must replace him. But this question of whether Davis's name can appear on the list of candidates to replace him may be the most bizarre development - it would mean that he could be recalled only with a 50%+1 vote against him, but he could be chosen to replace himself with only a plurality, potentially as few as (1/n)%+1 votes in a race with n candidates. Surely he could meet the second standard, even with plummetting numbers. He is, after all, a consummate political actor (if you've written him off already, read this).

MORE: A reader emails the following question:

if you vote no on the recall, are you prohibited from casting a vote for the replacement? if so, that's going to dramatically alter the vote. because, for example, i would vote against the recall, but if i thought that the recall was going to succeed, i would definitely want to vote on the successor, which could cause me to vote for the recall and for my replacement candidate.

As I understand it (and I can't find an article to back this up, unfortunately - the press deluge on this makes searching pretty hard) originally if you voted "no" to the recall, you couldn't vote for a replacement, but apparently that's since been changed. So, now it will ask whether you want Davis recalled, and then it will ask, regardless of what you voted on the first question, who should replace him in the event that he needs replacing. This is one reason Davis is pushing so hard to get his name on that second question - although I suppose it's not a foregone conclusion that folks who voted "no" on the first question would vote for him on the second.

And Haggai Elitzur takes issue with my math:

I'm sure you must be shocked - shocked! - to be hearing it from me (Casablanca reference, re my latest post), but as it is, the math in your latest post about the CA recall is a bit off. You say that the minimum needed to win in a race with n candidates is (1/n)% + 1 votes, but that's incorrect. There are a couple of ways to say it:

(100/n)% + 1

(1/n)V + 1 where V is the total number of votes cast

For instance, if there are only two candidates, and V total votes cast, he doesn't need (1/2)% + 1 votes, he needs (100/2)% + 1, or (1/2)V + 1.

Glad my political economy prof can't see me now...