Does anyone have more information on this decision? (Like, for instance, the actual text of the decision?)

U.S. District Judge Barry Moskowitz said voters will be allowed to cast a ballot for a potential successor to Davis even if they do not vote on whether he should be recalled.

This is written ambiguously, at least to me. Did he say that you can cast a ballot if you didn't vote at all on the recall issue, or that you can cast a ballot if you vote against the recall? The former interpretation doesn't really make sense--how many people are going to go to the polls who don't have an opinion on the recall (other than, perhaps, those who are going to vote on the Racial Privacy Initiative), but that would be how I'd read the reporting here. If it's the latter, they should have clearly said "even if they vote against the recall."

The way I understand it. Initially everyone thought that you get one ballot, on the top you say yes or no to Davis. On the bottom, if you voted no to Davis you could vote for a replacement. If you voted yes for Davis you had already voted for Davis so there was no point in voting twice. Now this Federal Judge has declared its reasonable for Davis supporters to vote twice on the ballot to hedge their bets.

I also heard one report that they wanted to have two seperate votes. This would have the benefit of allowing Democrats to sign up after Davis had been recalled without guilt, and allow them to rally the troops. It still amounts to two votes for Davis supporters.

The judge may be refering to the second option, I can't be certain.

After reading the link I'm pretty sure this is designed to allow people to vote to keep Davis and also vote for his replacement in case Davis loses the recall. It's voting twice.

No -- that was already settled, and even if you vote against the recall you get to vote for a potential replacement. That was pretty much accepted all around quite a while ago, and was even used by recall opponents as a reason against signing the petitions.

This is about the lawsuit described in the first paragraph of this AP article I saw at sacbee.com. Apparently there are lawyers who honestly think people will go to the polls on October 7 without a strong opinion on whether or not to recall eGray.

Lawyers. Sheesh.

I should give Dan Weintraub credit for the link, BTW, in this blog post.

As I understand it (and Lord knows, I may not - it's California, after all), the law said that if someone didn't cast a "yes" or "no" in the recall portion, any vote they cast for a replacement would be ignored. The judge said that a voter can vote for the replacement without casting a vote about the recall.

I heard someone say that California's laws usually get adopted around the rest of the country within 10-20 years. We're all doomed.

I heard someone say that California's laws usually get adopted around the rest of the country within 10-20 years. We're all doomed.

Oh, I think eGray has put the final kibosh on that...