This is not a post about EFCA, a subject about which I know embarrassingly little. Instead, it is about this decision of a California Court of Appeal today, holding that elections held pursuant to Proposition 218 must be conducted via a secret ballot. These elections are special assessment elections, for which the one person, one vote rule does not apply, and presumably vote buying is legal. (See the discussion after Salyer Land in the Lowenstein, Hasen, and Tokaji casebook.) So it is a bit odd that the reason the Court of Appeal gives for requiring a secret ballot is the conclusion that Proposition 218 speaks in terms of “elections” and the right to “vote.” If these other normal election requirements are not required and it is still considered an “election,” it is not self-evident to me that a secret ballot requirement also must apply. I’m not saying that it shouldn’t apply; only that it is not self-evident, particularly to the extent that there can be legal vote-buying.