VOICE YOUR THOUGHTS ON NEXT BALLOT.

Byline: Terri Hardy and Dorothy Korber

IF you have an itch to communicate your opinion on a ballot proposition to millions of California voters absolutely free, you have until 5 p.m. Tuesday.

That's the deadline for citizens to draft a 500-word pro or con statement and submit it to Secretary of State Bill Jones.

There are 19 measures on the March 7 primary ballot, ranging from a billion-dollar park bond to an initiative that would ban gay marriages. The state's ballot pamphlet, to be mailed Jan. 27, will present arguments for and against the 19, plus rebuttals from each side.

Though the opportunity to submit an argument is open to all California citizens, state law sets priorities for whose essays are selected for the pamphlet. For pro statements, legislators who draft measures get first crack, as do authors of initiatives. Next come bona fide organizations. Garden-variety citizens are lowest on the totem pole.

But some measures attract no con arguments at all, which may be your chance to grab a moment of fame, albeit a negative one.

Rules for the statements are as precise as a crossword puzzle: Typed and double-spaced. Five hundred words for the argument, 250 for the rebuttal. Punctuation doesn't count as words. Geographical names count as one word. Three people may sign each argument; they are allowed one title each.

For more information on penning ballot arguments, call Jones' office at [phone].

Three strikes

Los Angeles County prosecutors are among the toughest in the state against felons convicted under the state's ``three strikes, you're out'' criminal sentencing law, according to a report by the Legislative Analyst's Office.

Signed into law in March 1994, ``three strikes'' establishes longer prison sentences for people previously convicted of serious or violent crimes. On the third strike, a convicted felon is sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

The Legislative Analyst's Office reports that 43,800 second-strikers and 5,700 third-strikers have been imprisoned statewide.

There are significant variations from county to county in the enforcement of the three-strikes law. San Francisco and Alameda counties, for example, only invoke the third strike when a suspect is accused of a new violent or serious offense, rather than any felony, as the law provides.

Los Angeles County is more rigorous. Although L.A. accounts for 35 percent of the state's total inmate population, it sentences more than 42 percent of imprisoned second-strikers and 41.5 percent of third-strikers.

Classified information?

The office of public information at the California Transportation Department isn't very public. Last week, we called spokesman Jim Drago's office for simple but important details about expanding the 101-405 freeway interchange in the San Fernando Valley. One of the main functions of Drago's office is to handle calls from ever-on-deadline media types.

For hours, Drago was in a meeting and did not return phone calls. His secretary told us no one else in that office could help. We thought the information might be available elsewhere, so we asked his secretary for the name of Drago's supervisor.

``I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to divulge that information,'' was the reply.

Well, excuse us. Who are we to expect public information from a public information office?

Drago finally returned our calls late in the day. When we reminded him that the name of his supervisor wasn't exactly a state secret, he just laughed.