Under Proposal 2, the secretary of state must carry out the plan for selecting the 13 members of the commission. By Jan. 1 of each year the decennial U.S. census is conducted, the secretary must circulate membership applications “in a manner that invites wide public participation from different regions of the state.” The secretary also must mail 10,000 applications to a random selection of registered voters and accept returned applications until June 1 of the same year.
The content of the application form appears to be largely left to the discretion of the secretary of state. Proposal 2 makes only a few requirements of the application. One is that applicants must “attest under oath” that they meet the eligibility requirements for the commission. Another is that applicants must declare their affiliation with one of the two largest political parties, as measured by their representation in the current legislature, or declare that they do not affiliate with either party.
Ascertaining the political affiliation of each applicant is of chief importance. Proposal 2 would require the secretary of state to ensure that, of the registered voters who were mailed the 10,000 applications, there are submitted applications from at least 30 people who affiliate with each of the two most popular political parties and 40 from people who do not affiliate with either. Between Jan. 1 and June 1, the secretary must mail additional applications to registered voters, at random, until the responses from the mailings meet these marks.
Between June 1 and July 1, the secretary of state must remove incomplete applications from consideration, as well as those from people who are not qualified.[*] Then, 60 applicants affiliating with one of the two major parties and 80 affiliating with neither must be selected at random. Half the applicants chosen at random must come from the pool of applications received in response to the mailings.[†]
The random selection process used to choose these applicants must “use accepted statistical weighting methods to ensure that the pools, as closely as possible, mirror the geographic and demographic makeup of the state.” It is not clear which geographic and demographic factors must be included — presumably, that will be up to the secretary of state to determine.
This total of 200 applications then needs to be submitted to four legislators: the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the Senate Majority Leader and the Senate Minority Leader. These elected officials have until Aug. 1 to review the applicants and each may remove up to five applicants from the pool. If each elected official removes five applicants, together they would remove 20 — or 10 percent of the total.
After this step, the secretary of state must randomly select the 13 members from the pool of remaining applicants.[‡] This must be completed by Sept. 1. The 13 members must fit this profile: four affiliate with one of the two most popular political parties, four affiliate with the other and five attest that they affiliate with neither of these parties.
[*] Applicants may face perjury charges if they submit an application, attesting under oath that they were qualified, and then later found to be not qualified by the secretary of state.
[†] This design may help minimize “selection bias” with regards to the people who send in applications. Requiring that half of the applications come from responses from the mailings might help guard against the possibility that there is some bias inherent in the type of people who would take the initiative and seek out applying for the commission on their own. This wouldn’t eliminate all selection bias — there also may be an inherent difference between people who respond to the random mailing and those who do not — but could help limit its impact.
[‡] This pool of applicants is maintained as it would serve as the source for replacing a commissioner if they were to resign or leave the commission for another reason. The secretary of state must select a replacement at random from this pool.