On May 4, Jason Olson of Independent Voice and Eric Bauman, vice-chair of the California Democratic Party and chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, debated for 15 minutes on KCRW Radio, the public radio station in Los Angeles. They were on the show “Which Way, L.A.?”
If your computer has software for listening to archived radio, use this link if you wish to listen. The Proposition 14 portions starts after 30 minutes of other topics, mostly on airline mergers.
Jason Olson’s assertion that independent voters in California must ask for a Democratic or Republican ballot is misleading, because it implies that if an independent voter does nothing, he or she will never receive a Democratic or Republican ballot. Actually, when an independent voter walks into a polling place on primary election day, a polling place official hands that voter a small card, which says, “When you registered to vote, you did not select a qualified political party. You will receive a ballot with nonpartisan contests and measures. You may also request the non-party member version of either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party ballot. Please request one of these ballots from the pollworker.” At this point the voter is asked to choose between three alternatives, a non-partisan-Democratic ballot, a non-partisan Republican ballot, or a ballot that only has non-partisan items.
Ever since 2001, both the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party, have let independent voters vote in their primaries for Congress and state office. The Democratic Party also lets independents vote in its presidential primary, but the Republican Party does not.
The American Independent Party HAS allowed the Decline-to-State voter in its primary, until this year. The current regime prefers to cut people out rather than letting those with SOME interest in the party LEARN more about it through the choices offered on the A.I.P. primary ballot.
P.R. and nonpartisan A.V. — NO primaries are needed — with NO little cards.
Actually, when an independent voter walks into a polling place on primary election day, a polling place official hands that voter a small card …
How does the polling place official know that the voter walking into the polling place has declined to state their intent to affiliate with a party?
It is of course illegal for someone who has selected a party other than a qualified political party to vote in a partisan primary. And under the current format of the registration procedure, the decision to not declare an intended affiliation, and the specification of the intended party are two separate decisions.
Is the practice that you have described a statewide practice? It could be considered electioneering on behalf of the Republican and Democratic parties. If those parties want to encourage DTS voters to vote in their primary, let them do that themselves, whether through advertisement or with campaign workers outside the polling place.
A California polling place official knows the voter is a Declines to State voter because the list of voters tells the party affiliation of each voter. I have done the job myself many times. The first time I did that job was 1964, the year I turned 21.
As to “the non-party member version of either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party ballot”: Is the only difference between this and the party member ballot that the races for party leadership positions are left off?
Yes.
How about having the party hacks pay for the party hack stuff part of the ballots — instead of the poor suffering taxpayers ???
How many clubby groups have mail ballots for their elections ???
P.R. and A.V. — NO primaries are needed.
In the County of Sacramento, most voters received their sample ballots in the mail this afternoon. As promised by Jill LaVine, the registrar of voters, the sample ballot phamplet combines all of the qualified political parties into one booklet. That was done in order to save “time and space” for the registrar of voters and also to save “taxpayers’ money” (from an article in the “Sacramento Bee” on Sunday, 5-2-10).
This sample ballot is the most fun and interesting one since the time when California had a blanket primary system for a short while. It is sort of a preview to what a “top-two” sample ballot would look like. That would be one good thing about the “top-two” system but it is not enough to convert me; there are too many negative aspects of that system.
If we are going to go that route (“top-two”), one could ask: Why not just have a “top-one” system and save the cost of a general election? Or, even more inexpensively, how about just letting the establishment news media annoint the winners without having an election at all? As most of the readers of this website know, that is what they try to do anyway, for the most part. This is written jokingly on my part, of course.
#8: Welcome back, Phil. I was worried that you might have been kidnapped by a bunch of right-wingers.
Let’s hope that California never gets any kind of “top two” ballot– sample or real– other than for local offices.
A “top one” election is what Louisiana has when one candidate gets 50%-plus in the first round. Louisianans would consider it pretty bizarre to have a runoff after one candidate has received 50%-plus– as Washington state does and Prop. 14 would impose in California.
BTW: In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal (2007) and Sen. David Vitter (2004) were each elected without a runoff.
Thank you very much, Steve! All is well here in sunny Sacramento. My comments have increased more lately. The reason that I was so quiet for long periods of time is because I have been on a political sabbatical since the first of the year. My politicl involvement is very minimal now and I am refraining from politcal debating, for the time being. I had just reached a point (toward the end of last year) where I was about as sick and tired of the political “yelling” as a person could be and I just had to get away from it all for awhile. In addtion, I felt that I needed time for reflection and study more than political action.
It is good to be back at a little more visible level again. This is a wonderful website and it is one of the most significant places where I get my political news.
An interesting thing about our combined sample ballots in the County of Sacramento is that the list for County Central Committee candidates are included for the Democratic Party (which is my Party now) and the Republican Party. For some reason, the minor parties’ CCC candidates are not included. I am thinking that the people who are actually registrants of those parties have the listings. I certainly hope so. The American Independent Party has an especially interesting primary this year because of the struggle between the Constitution Party faction and the America’s Independent Party faction.
#4 How does the poll worker know who the voter is when they walk into the polling place?
Do you mean that when the voter identifies himself, and the poll worker looks them up on the voting roll he then responds in the following way?
If they are a Libertarian/P&F/AIP/Green/Democrat/Republican they hand them their parties ballot.
If they are a Constitution/Reform/SalmonYoga voter, they get the non-partisan ballot.
And if they are a DTS voter, the poll worker hands them a small card?
It sounds like a poll worker might not actually be permitted to ask the voter whether they want a Democrat or Republican ballot. It also sounds like this might not be a universal practice in all counties. See for example:
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/pdfs/poll-worker-training-standards-final-031210.pdf
http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/content/vote
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP9lDAxMZpk&feature=player_embedded
#8 Proposition 14 provides that qualified parties may indicate their preferred candidates on the sample ballot in all voter-nominated races. It is up to the county to decide whether to have a single sample ballot for all parties, or have individual party ballots distributed to each voter.
Since presumably a sample ballot would require all candidates be listed, with the party choices marked; it may simpler to use one ballot, with all party-endorsed candidates marked.
#4 What is the purpose of AB 895?
The records available to polling place elections officials are computer-generated, and if a voter is a registered member of an unqualified party, the record at the polls just shows “DTS” (declines to state). The poll worker has no knowledge as to whether the voter is a true declines to state voter, or is a member of an unqualified party.
As the Secretary of State’s Poll Worker Standards manual says, “Poll workers should have a thorough understanding of the rights and options of voters who are not registered with a qualified political party but are registered as declines to state (DTS) voters or are registered with unqualified political parties. For the purposes of this section, any reference to DTS voters includes both those voters who have declined to state a political party affiliation and those who are registered with nonqualified political parties.”
The purpose of AB 895 is to change the procedure at the polls, from the polling place official showing the DTS voter the card that explains the options, and instead providing that the official should orally explain the options. The existing law, mandating that the DTS voter read the options, instead of having the official orally explain the options, is that lawmakers were afraid if the polling place official does it orally, the polling place official might say something improper that seems to suggest an attitude toward what the DTS voter should do.
#14 California law makes a clear distinction between DTS votes and voters who have registered with unqualified parties. There is no reason to obscure the difference for poll workers.
Is the practice in San Francisco universal? Remember, at least two counties count “Independents” as having affiliated with a hitherto unqualified party.
Which section is the “existing law” that mandates that the DTS voter read the options?
Current law regarding DTS voters is hacked into section 13102 which deals with ballot format.
AB 895 would place new language into section 14272 which deals with procedures at the polling place. It would require election officials to give written notice to voters. So there is apparently is some ad hoc procedures in some counties such as you have described.
AB 895 doesn’t say anything about the election officials orally giving directions. It says that the the voter may request a ballot either orally or written.
Under Proposition 14, all this unnecessary complexity will be eliminated (except for presidential preference primaries).