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Lottery-Style Drawing in Sacramento Used to Pick Name Order on California Ballot
Aired August 11, 2003 - 15:01 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: You don't go from muscleman to movie star to political phenom without a few lucky breaks. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is probably hoping for another one today. Even as the would-be California governor appeared in New York, he was a contestant in a lottery-style drawing in Sacramento.
CNN's Miguel Marquez has more on the drawing now and what it means for the recall free-for-all -- Miguel.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How are you there, John? Yes, it was exactly a lottery drawing just like you see in any bingo parlor across the country. You can see the machine is still set up behind me. Next to that are the letters. They were stuck into little cases for film, like 33-millimeter cases that you would have.
They were drawn out one by one, and the letters were put up. Mr. Schwarzenegger's name, or the letter "S" came up number 11 in this thing. So that means, assuming that there are candidates in each of the 10 categories, the 10 letters before him, that he would come up then at the top of the list in the 11th voting district here. There are 80 voting districts in California.
His name, then, on that ballot would depend on the second letter of his name, if that makes sense. So the "C" in his name would then determine in all the "S's" in the race where he would appear on the ballot. And then once he's on the top of the ballot, then he would then go down to the ballot, and that would be the same thing for every candidate who is running in this election.
One thing that the secretary of state said a few minutes ago was that, you know, they hold these things for every election. They are mandated. And no one ever comes.
Of course, this time there was media representatives from across the country. And it's done. The list is set. So they can now put the ballots together and start working with the counties in order to make this election a reality -- John.
KING: And Miguel, the deadline has now passed, but do we know with finality just yet how many candidates there will be? Some 193, 194 say they've filed. How many will be on the final ballot?
MARQUEZ: I don't know if we'll ever know anything with finality in this election it seems. But there was 193 as of yesterday afternoon. We kind of thought that was it. Today, the secretary of state announced there was -- now 195 have filed. And 96 have qualified, another 99, their paperwork is being gone through. But he also said that they have more paperwork to go through, filers. So this thing could hit around 200 candidates.
He didn't think many more, but he thought it could get to the 200 mark by the end of the day. And by Wednesday, when all of the candidates must be certified, which is a -- it's a fairly formulated process to be certified, but up until then they will be going through paperwork to see if there's other filers. So we could have 200 people running for California governor -- John.
KING: Can't wait to see what that ballot actually looks like. Miguel Marquez live from Sacramento, thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Order on California Ballot>
Aired August 11, 2003 - 15:01 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: You don't go from muscleman to movie star to political phenom without a few lucky breaks. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is probably hoping for another one today. Even as the would-be California governor appeared in New York, he was a contestant in a lottery-style drawing in Sacramento.
CNN's Miguel Marquez has more on the drawing now and what it means for the recall free-for-all -- Miguel.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How are you there, John? Yes, it was exactly a lottery drawing just like you see in any bingo parlor across the country. You can see the machine is still set up behind me. Next to that are the letters. They were stuck into little cases for film, like 33-millimeter cases that you would have.
They were drawn out one by one, and the letters were put up. Mr. Schwarzenegger's name, or the letter "S" came up number 11 in this thing. So that means, assuming that there are candidates in each of the 10 categories, the 10 letters before him, that he would come up then at the top of the list in the 11th voting district here. There are 80 voting districts in California.
His name, then, on that ballot would depend on the second letter of his name, if that makes sense. So the "C" in his name would then determine in all the "S's" in the race where he would appear on the ballot. And then once he's on the top of the ballot, then he would then go down to the ballot, and that would be the same thing for every candidate who is running in this election.
One thing that the secretary of state said a few minutes ago was that, you know, they hold these things for every election. They are mandated. And no one ever comes.
Of course, this time there was media representatives from across the country. And it's done. The list is set. So they can now put the ballots together and start working with the counties in order to make this election a reality -- John.
KING: And Miguel, the deadline has now passed, but do we know with finality just yet how many candidates there will be? Some 193, 194 say they've filed. How many will be on the final ballot?
MARQUEZ: I don't know if we'll ever know anything with finality in this election it seems. But there was 193 as of yesterday afternoon. We kind of thought that was it. Today, the secretary of state announced there was -- now 195 have filed. And 96 have qualified, another 99, their paperwork is being gone through. But he also said that they have more paperwork to go through, filers. So this thing could hit around 200 candidates.
He didn't think many more, but he thought it could get to the 200 mark by the end of the day. And by Wednesday, when all of the candidates must be certified, which is a -- it's a fairly formulated process to be certified, but up until then they will be going through paperwork to see if there's other filers. So we could have 200 people running for California governor -- John.
KING: Can't wait to see what that ballot actually looks like. Miguel Marquez live from Sacramento, thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Order on California Ballot>
