Sacramento --

Voters may have a chance "to reboot and refresh our state government," if Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper's plan to split California into six states makes the November 2016 ballot, but the wealthy investor's vision of California's future is longer on enthusiasm than on details.

"We are ready to make a change," Draper said Tuesday as he delivered 44,000 of the estimated 1.3 million signatures collected for his constitutional amendment to the Sacramento County registrar of voters. "We're saying, make one failing government into six great states."

But when pressed on just how a plan that creates six smaller states with huge disparities in population, resources and income would be good for all Californians, Draper was less forthcoming.

Questions, for example, about who would run the labyrinthine network that delivers water to arid regions with millions of people, how California's multibillion-dollar pension obligations would be paid, and how the University of California and state college systems would be divided can all be worked out, Draper said.

Working out those troubles, however, can cause more difficulties than the Six Californias initiative was designed to solve, said Corey Cook, an associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco.

"It's a solution in search of a problem," he said of Draper's plan. "There's a mythology that this just provides a fresh start, but how do you disentangle 150 years of fiscal controls and arrangements?"

Water agreements, such as the Hetch Hetchy system that serves San Francisco and the Peninsula, would now be between separate states, as would the California State Water Project, which transports water south.

Jumble of services

Prisons are not always in the areas where their inmates come from. About 37 percent of the state's prisoners, for example, were convicted in what would be West California, which would include Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties - but those counties have only 7 percent of the state's prison beds.

Fire stations, state parks, office buildings and even state vehicles and other equipment are all spread unevenly across California and would have to be considered in any split of the state.

There's no guarantee this can happen in a hurry. West Virginia seceded from Virginia in 1861, but it wasn't until 1915 that the dispute over who owed what to whom was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Draper said signatures for his measure were submitted Tuesday to registrars in all 58 counties. The secretary of state's office said those local officials will begin the process of determining whether Draper's group had the 807,615 valid signatures of registered voters needed to get the measure on the ballot.

Under Draper's plan, each of the six states would have its own government and own collection of elected officials, including congressional representatives.

It would make San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose part of the state of Silicon Valley, which would extend to Contra Costa, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. San Diego and Orange counties would be in South California, while Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Santa Barbara would be in West California.

'Some serious issues'

The Central Valley south of Stockton and the central and southern Sierra would be the state of Central California, while North California would include Marin and Sonoma counties and the greater Sacramento area. Rural counties in far Northern California would make up the state of Jefferson.

Draper, a former Republican now registered as decline-to-state, said smaller, more local governments would be more responsive to citizens and business alike.

"Six Californias gives us the opportunity to live in this glorious state and have great government services, too," he said.

Plans to split the state "come along every few years," said Shaun Bowler, a political science professor at UC Riverside and an expert on the California initiative process. But such proposals usually fail to deal with "some serious issues involved in these kind of breakups," which are huge.

State disparities

The initiative calls for a 24-member Board of Commissioners, with members appointed by the state Legislature and the six new states, to "settle and adjust the property and financial affairs between the state of California and the newly created states." If they can't reach agreement, the state's debts would be split among the six new states, based on their population, with each new state taking control of the state colleges, roads, bridges, office buildings and other government assets within its borders.

But while the debts may be doled out equally, the income won't be. According to a January study by the state legislative analyst's office, the new state of Silicon Valley would be the richest state in the union, based on per-capita income, while Central California "would rank last among all U.S. states."

'Your own state bird'

And if each new state gets the colleges in their territories, Silicon Valley boasts UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, UC Santa Cruz and four state universities. Jefferson has only two: Humboldt State and Cal State Chico.

Still, Draper argued that change in the way California operates can only be for the better.

"Nearly 1 in 5 of us is living below the poverty line; our prison population has quadrupled," he said. "Our state's technology lives in the 1980s, and our roads and freeways are starting to crack."

He said the message to California voters is, "Now, it's up to you."

"You can mold your own state," Draper said, and choose its services, government officials and "your own state bird."

Splitting the state Issues likely to come up as the Six Californias idea advances: State parks, beaches: Could states charge higher fees to nonresidents? UC and CSU: Nonresident tuition for students suddenly out of state? Prisons: Areas that now send plenty of convicts to out-of-area prisons might need new local lockups. Water: The Sierra has it, the Bay Area, L.A. and the Central Valley need it, and they'd all be in different states. Roads: Could a new state turn its piece of Highway 1 into a toll road?

Carla Marinucci and John Wildermuth are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com, jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @cmarinucci, @jfwildermuth