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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —

There is outrage this week from California voters and voter advocates after a controversial mailer showed up just days before a special election.

The mailers come from a group called the Northern California State Voter Project, but there’s no website and no phone number for the promoters, whose only known address is a post office box. 

The mailer threatens to reveal people's voting history to friends, family and neighbors.

“I was really upset," said Susan Strand, a voter in El Dorado County. “I felt violated."

Strand showed KCRA 3 the letter she received from Northern California State Voter Project.

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Skeptics might call them do-gooders. But in today’s world—when we could surely use as much good as possible—what’s wrong with that?

To highlight the 30th anniversary of SN&R, we want to recognize 30 people who embody our mission: To have a positive impact on our communities and make them better places to live.

On purpose, the vast majority on this list are not high-profile politicians, the rich and powerful or other bold names. Many come from the nonprofit world, not well-known to the general public but working every day to help the less fortunate and to make public policy smarter and more humane. Some have been in the trenches for many years, while others are just emerging as leaders.

Like any list like this, it’s rather subjective. There are many others in the Sacramento region who are doing yeoman’s work and also deserving of praise.

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Kim Alexander

President of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, she’s a strong advocate for more informed voters having a bigger say, and for voters across the state having equal access to participate. Her group is particularly focused on making sure that technology helps—not harms—our democracy.

(full story)

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A national effort to bypass the Electoral College and pick the president by popular vote — which may or may not be constitutional — is picking up new support and moving closer to success.

Governors in Colorado, New Mexico and Delaware are poised to sign the National Popular Vote compact, under which states would pledge to give all their electoral votes to the candidate who collects the most votes nationwide. California, 10 other states and the District of Columbia already have joined the compact, which would take effect if states holding 270 electoral votes, the number needed to elect a president, sign on.

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In two fiercely contested Central Valley congressional races in November, where long-serving Republican incumbents Jeff Denham and David Valadao both ended up losing their seats by thin margins to their Democratic challengers, some voters were confused and misinformed at the polls.

Modesto attorney Lisa Battista, who coordinated a group of volunteer election observers, said polling places in Stanislaus County ran out of pink envelopes used to separate provisional ballots on election night.

And then confusion set in.

“The poll workers didn’t know what to do,” Battista said. “They turned a lot of people away and told them: 'I'm sorry you can't vote here. You have to go find another polling place.'”

In response, Battista said she made an emergency request to keep polls open past 8 pm, but a judge turned it down.