It’s official - there will be three candidates for the April 8 Special Congressional Open Primary for the 12th Congressional District. With the filing deadline closed yesterday, we know who will be on the ballot:

· Jackie Speier, Democratic former state senator, of Burlingame;

· Mike Moloney, Republican retired businessman, of Foster City; and

· Greg Conlon, Republican businessman/CPA, of Atherton.

Speaking of ballots, a reminder that, as an open primary, all candidates will appear on the same ballot. Voters can vote for whomever they choose, regardless of political party affiliation.  If a single candidate receives a majority of the vote (50 percent plus one), then that candidate is declared the winner and no general election is necessary. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, Speier and the top vote-getter from the Republican party will be placed on the ballot for a special congressional general election, which will be held on June 3 in conjunction with the Statewide Direct Primary Election. Read more about how the special congressional election works in our previous post.

Now, don’t go and get yourself confused, as the candidates running in this race are different than the candidates running for the seat in the June 3 Statewide Direct Primary. The April 8 election is only to fill the remainder of the unexpired term for the district. The term ends on Jan. 3, 2008, and was vacated after U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos died from esophageal cancer on Feb. 11. Candidates running in the June 3 Statewide Direct Primary are vying for the regular two-term that begins on Jan. 4, 2009. The filing deadline for that race isn’t until March 7, so we are still uncertain what the final candidate pool will look like (but here are filings so far).

And, on another note, though already widely reported in the media, we’ll confirm that we were not successful in our bid to make the April 8 Special Congressional Open Primary an all-mail election. We’ll give credit to the San Mateo Daily News, which said it better than we could have:

“Mail-only special election idea dies: Political support lacking for the cost-saving move to fill Lantos’ empty seat.”

That is, in fact, exactly what happened. We are very grateful to state Assemblyman Gene Mullin, D-South San Francisco, for his willingness to carry the bill and for the attempt he made to garner bipartisan support. Read more in our previous post about why we thought an all-mail election was a good idea to save money and increase turnout.

So we’ll be holding a regular election on April 8. There will be the usual three ways to vote: by mail, early at a universal voting center, or at your polling place on Election Day.