Latest polling suggests California voters could benefit from more information about state's competing death penalty initiatives

This news report on the latest polling concerning the competing death penalty initiatives before voters this fall reinforces my sense that Californians could benefit from a lot more public discussion and debate over the state and possible fate of capital punishment there.  The news piece is headlined "Is a plan to end the death penalty on the ropes in California?," and here are the details (with my emphasis added):

A plurality of likely voters backs the latest ballot effort to repeal the death penalty in California and shutter the nation’s largest death row, but support remains below the 50 percent threshold needed, a new poll shows. The survey, completed jointly by the Field Poll and the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, found Proposition 62 ahead 48 to 37 percent, with 15 percent of likely voters undecided.

Meanwhile, barely a third (35 percent) support Proposition 66, a competing initiative aimed at expediting the death-penalty process. With 42 percent undecided, it appears far less familiar to voters.  Twenty-three percent are opposed.

The see-saw measures come four years after voters narrowly rejected Proposition 34, an initiative that would have replaced capital punishment with life in prison without parole. The Field Poll’s last survey of that measure, taken a week before the 2012 election, found it leading 45 to 38 percent.

Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll, said there are signs of encouragement for death-penalty opponents this time, despite hovering below a majority seven weeks before the Nov. 8 election. “This is not a bad-news poll for Prop. 62,” DiCamillo added....

Proposition 62 would replace death sentences with life in prison without the possibility of parole and apply retroactively to existing death sentences. Proposition 66 endeavors to speed up the process by requiring that appeals conclude within five years of sentencing. DiCamillo said there is “much greater confusion” about Proposition 66, adding, “Voters don’t fully understand what the impact is.” If both measures pass, the one with the most votes will prevail....

California’s last execution was in January 2006, with the state effectively halting executions over challenges to its lethal injection protocol.

Some of many prior related posts:

• California voters in November to have "mend it or end it" death penalty initiative options
• California initiative to reform death penalty officially qualifies for ballot (and will compete with repeal initiative)
• California DA makes the case for mending rather than ending California's capital punishment system
• "California Votes 2016: An Analysis of the Competing Death Penalty Ballot Initiatives."
• "It's Silicon Valley vs. law enforcement on California death penalty"
• Poll suggests Californians will vote in November 2016 to mend rather than end the death penalty in their state
• "Fourteen Years Later: The Capital Punishment System in California"