California Voters Ordered to Weigh Billionaires' Shoe Sizes Before Ballot Count
California's billionaires must now queue in person at county polling sites, where clerks measure each fortune against a public yardstick before any vote on a wealth levy can be cast.
Billionaires in California have been required to queue in person at county polling sites, where election clerks now measure each fortune against a public yardstick before a ballot on a wealth levy can be issued. The measuring has so far covered 41 fortunes, one of which had to be rounded down by a clerk in Fresno who insisted that the excess was too large to be expressed in dollars and was recorded in private jets instead.
State officials said the procedure was adopted after the proposed levy was reviewed by a committee whose members concluded that a tax on extreme wealth could only be fairly assessed by people who had themselves once stood in line for a bus. Staff were trained for three weeks in the use of a fold-out brass measuring rod, which must be carried by hand from polling station to polling station in a motorcade of electric vans.
"We are not asking anyone to give up anything they do not own," said a spokesperson for the Secretary of State's office, who confirmed that the rod is now kept in a glass case in Sacramento between uses. "We are simply asking that the number be read aloud." Residents of Oakland have since begun forming their own queues outside the rod's visits, and one yacht harbour has reportedly been closed to vessels longer than the standard parking space.
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