Misleading Ballot Language, Oh My!

U.S. District Judge Stephen Yelenosky has told the Austin City Council to rewrite the language on the proposed ballot regarding the Open Government Online and Clean Water charter amendments. The judge stated that the language was misleading and nondescriptive. He pointed out that the City's use of the words "any" and "all" in the ballot language conflicted with the amendment which includes substantial privacy-protecting exceptions to the information that could go online. Our dear mayor has said that the City's illegal wording of the ballot language for the two amendments was due to short notice.

Mr. Wynn told In Fact Daily,

"It is a big challenge to take an ordinance that one hadn't seen before. We had to (analyze it) in a few days. How do you condense four or five pages into four or five sentences? We want to get it right."

The city has until 5:00 pm Monday to rewrite the on the language.