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| Registered | 18,245,970[1] | |
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| Turnout | 72.36% ( 12.77 pp)[1] | |
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| Elections in California |
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The California state elections was held on Election Day, November 6, 2012. On the ballot were eleven propositions, various parties' nominees for the United States presidency, the Class I Senator to the United States Senate, all of California's seats to the House of Representatives, all of the seats of the State Assembly, and all odd-numbered seats of the State Senate.
This was the first general election with California's newly implemented nonpartisan blanket primary in effect, pursuant to Proposition 14, which passed with 53% voter approval in June 2010. Additionally, in November 2010, voters approved Proposition 20, which authorized a California Citizens Redistricting Commission to re-draw congressional district lines, in addition to its current job of drawing state senate district lines and state assembly district lines, taking away that job from the California state legislature. This was the first general election whose winners represent districts drawn by the Citizens Redistricting Commission.
After the election, California's congressional delegation gained four new Democrats, including the first gay Asian American elected to Congress. Dianne Feinstein won her re-election bid for the U.S. Senate, and the Democrats gained a 2/3 supermajority in both of the state's legislative chambers. California voters also voted to re-elect incumbent president Barack Obama, giving him the state's fifty-five electoral votes. Among the propositions on the ballot, voters chose to increases taxes in order to fund education and other state programs, voted to keep the death penalty and the power of labor unions to use payroll deduction to fund political campaigns, and opted to reform the state's three-strikes law.
- ^ a b "Historical Voter Registration and Participation" (PDF). California Secretary of State.