'R' is first letter in recall ballot drawing | Sacramento Bee

'R' is first letter in recall ballot drawing

Published 1:52 p.m. PDT Monday, August 11, 2003

In an election that threatens to rewrite politics and reduce the term in office of Gov. Gray Davis, the lesson of the day Monday was that the alphabet begins with the letter "R," as in recall.

State election officials randomly drew letters to determine the order of the recall ballot that could be choked with nearly 200 candidates for the special Oct. 7 election.

The first letter chosen was R, followed by W, Q and O.

The six-minute grab bag of letters seemed more like a lottery drawing than a routine process, which is done every election to help erase the estimated 5 percent advantage a candidate gets from being at the top of the ballot, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley said.

The letters H, B and S, were drawn as eighth, ninth and tenth, meaning that some high-profile candidates, commentator Arianna Huffington, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be relatively near each other on most ballots.

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