i want to know...

Did any of you vote yesterday?
Why do Californians have to vote on budget proposals? Seriously, isn't this kind of dumb, as Californians generally don't like to pay new taxes even though our liberal selves keep passing measures that require spending more money anyway? And then we wonder why we're broke? It's not like I want the Californian government to enact stupid policies, but it seems like we wouldn't be in as deep a hole if we left a lot of the budget stuff to the actual legislature. (I have no idea if this is a better idea or not, but the current process seems untenable.)
Why do we have so many elections in the first place? I think this is the third one in Los Angeles so far. Why do we have run-off elections? Why can't we just choose first and second choice, or whatever that option is called?
If less than ten percent of the populace votes, how is that a fair and democratic process?