‘Ghost Voting’ Illegal but Assembly Makes It a Common Practice

One day last month, Assemblyman Art Agnos was on an airplane en route to a dinner in Los Angeles while he was being recorded as voting on at least half a dozen bills on the Assembly floor.

The votes were an example of the widespread--and illegal--practice of “ghost voting,” where an Assembly colleague, often a member sitting at an adjoining desk, casts a member’s vote for him.

“I had been over in the Senate working a bill,” the San Francisco Democrat later explained to the San Francisco Chronicle. “I looked at my watch and it was 3:20 and I knew I was already late. I guess I was careless and forgot to come back and tell them not to vote me anymore because I was leaving the building.”

Controversial Practices

The California Assembly’s electronic voting system--efficient as it is--has given rise to a couple of controversial practices: ghost voting and voting switching, where an assemblyman can change his vote after the roll call is completed.

The Assembly, which considers more than 2,000 bills each year, is a fast-moving place, where often only seconds of formal consideration are given to a measure.

To expedite things, various electronic systems have been used since the 1930s.

In the current system, each member has a switch at his desk, which he can unlock with a key. He votes yes by pushing a green button and no by pushing a red one.

The results are shown on two giant scoreboards on the front wall of the chamber and recorded in the Assembly’s computer. Printouts of the results are available to legislators and reporters within minutes.

The controversy over ghost voting dates back at least to the early 1970s, when Assemblyman Frank Belotti was recorded as having voted after he had died. No one ever figured out how it happened, but Assembly officials to this day are convinced that it was an inadvertent error.

Several years later, the Assembly adopted Standing Rule 104, which says, “No members shall operate the voting switch of any other member.”

The only exception to the rule is the presiding officer, who at the time it was adopted did not have access to a voting switch at his podium.

Despite the rule’s unequivocal language, spectators in the visitor’s gallery can routinely see members vote for each other.

Assemblymen spend a good deal of their floor time consulting with each other or trying to round up votes.

Unable to race back to their seats in time, they yell to a colleague with directions on how to vote.

Several assemblymen said they were under the impression that it was acceptable to vote on behalf of a colleague, as long as he is on the floor or at least in the building.

The Assembly certainly takes the practice much less seriously than the federal House of Representatives, where disciplinary action is being considered against Rep. Austin J. Murphy Jr. (D-Pa.) in part for allowing someone to vote for him.

The rule in the 80-member Assembly contrasts with the 40-member, more deliberative Senate, where voice votes make ghost voting more difficult.

Also unlike the Senate, the Assembly allows members to change their votes after the final roll call, providing the final outcome is not changed.

Many members argue that vote switching is necessary because the speed with which bills move makes mistakes inevitable.

Assemblywoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, a Los Angeles Democrat who assumed office only on May 18, showed how easily a mistake can be made when she was at first recorded as the only member opposing a resolution commemorating the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution. She had to stand up afterward and move to change her vote.

“It was embarrassing,” she said. “You know how fast things move. Most of these issues are entirely new to me, and I spend most of my time on the floor trying to stay ahead of the game. I was reading another analysis (of an upcoming bill). I just pushed the wrong button.”

On Sept. 11, the hectic final day of this year’s session, 20 votes were changed on the first 100 bills considered.

Other Reasons for Switch

But critics, like Ralph Morrell, say legislators switch votes for reasons other than to rectify mistakes.

Morrell, a retired Navy man, and his wife traveled from their Dixon home in 1978 to watch the Assembly vote on a bill to enhance penalties for rapists.

They noticed that their own assemblyman did not vote--which was tantamount to a vote against the bill since it needed an absolute majority of 41 votes to pass.

After the bill was defeated with only 32 yes votes to 29 no votes, the assemblyman recorded his vote as yes.

“He was, in effect, lying to his constituents,” Morrell recalled. “He was working to kill the bill, but could later claim that he voted for it.”

Morrell was so incensed that he began an initiative drive for a constitutional amendment banning vote switching and ghost voting.

He said he had collected about three-fourths of the signatures he needed when the Assembly, trying to thwart him, toughened its rules a bit.