On January 11, the American Independent Party asked the California Secretary of State to list these twelve candidates on its presidential primary ballot: Lawrence Beliz, Wiley Drake, Brian Henry, Tom Hoefling, Rex Kafo, J. R. Myers, Walter Niyakik, Robert Ornelas, George Peabody, Robert S. Peters, Robert Sisilo, and Donald Trump.
California law says presidential primary candidates mentioned in the news media should automatically be placed on ballots. Because the news media typically doesn’t cover minor party presidential primary nomination contests very well, if at all, the tradition in California and certain other states is that election officials simply ask the minor party which presidential candidates to list. However, that tradition was disrupted in California in 2012, when the former Secretary of State, Deborah Bowen, refused to follow the suggestions of the American Independent Party and the Peace & Freedom Party.
The AIP has information that Donald Trump is willing to be listed on the AIP primary ballot. The AIP lets independent voters vote in its presidential primary, but the Republican Party of California does not. The AIP says now independent voters will be able to choose an AIP ballot and express support for Trump in that manner.
As far as is known, no presidential candidate has run simultaneously in the presidential primary of two different parties in the same state. However, there is no law against it, if the candidate is willing. California and approximately 24 other states do permit two parties to jointly nominate the same presidential candidate in the general election. The last instances in California of two parties running the same presidential nominee in the general election were in 1940 and 1928.
Is Tom Hoefling the America’s Party Candidate again this year? I imagine his vote numbers will drop drastically if he doesn’t get the AIP ballot line in California.
As for the possibility of Trump gaining AIP ballot access, that should afford him some 30,000-40,000 additional votes based on the AIP’s previous two years performance in the general presidential election.
Is Trump serious and wanting to go the third party/Indy route? Or is he just throwing a few peppers in the gumbo?
“As for the possibility of Trump gaining AIP ballot access, that should afford him some 30,000-40,000 additional votes based on the AIP’s previous two years performance in the general presidential election.”
You’re suggesting that if Donald Trump was on the California general election ballot as the AIP’s nominee he’d perform about average with the no-names the party normally nominates?
“Is Tom Hoefling the America’s Party Candidate again this year?”
I was wondering the same thing.
When the presidential nominee of two parties appears on a California general election ballot, there is only one square on the November ballot to vote for that candidate. In other words, California has aggregated fusion (like Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont and New Hampshire), not disaggregated fusion (like New York, Connecticut and South Carolina).
Of course, states that allow write-in votes in presidential primaries often find that voters in one party will write in candidates running in the other primary. I know New Hampshire best.
In 1968, I was involved with the Eugene McCarthy campaign. McCarthy scored an upset by getting 41.1% of the vote against President Johnson (who would announce his retirement soon after), who was not on the ballot but got 49.6% of the vote. But Republican candidate Richard Nixon, as a write-in, got 4.6% of the Democratic vote. And McCarthy finished fifth in the Republican primary, getting 1% of the vote.
My statement above about Democrat Eugene McCarthy getting 1% of the vote in the 1968 Republican New Hampshire primary was in error; I mistakenly took the “fifth place” and 1% from a Wikipedia list of total votes of candidates in all the 1968 Republican primaries.
I can’t find the complete results of the 1968 Republican primary in New Hampshire as easily as I could find the Democratic results, but I assume McCarthy’s write-in votes probably totaled considerably more of the GOP primary vote when you figure in his 1% total in all primaries included most states which don’t allow write-in votes. I’ll keep researching.
In March 1968, Eugene McCarthy got 5,511 write-ins in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, good enough for 3rd place. Nelson Rockefeller came in 2nd with 11,241 write-ins. Nixon was the only name on the ballot and he got 80,666. McCarthy’s percentage in the Republican primary was 5.3%.
When California had the blanket presidential primary in 2000,
John McCain finished ahead of Bill Bradley among Democrat voters, Howard Phillips finished 6th among American Independent voters behind McCain, Al Gore, George W Bush, Bill Bradley, and Alan Keyes, even though Phillips was the sole AI candidate. McCain won the Libertarian primary, defeating Harry Browne among registered Libertarians. John Hagelin finished fourth among Natural Law voters. Donald Trump finished 7th among Reform voters, behind McCain, Gore, Bush, Bradley, Keyes, and Ralph Nader.
Trump’s support was strongest among minor party voters:
Reform 2.1%
American Independent 0.6%
Natural Law 0.5%
independents (DTS and others) 0.5%
Libertarian 0.4%
Green 0.2%
and weakest among
Democrats 0.2%
Republicans 0.1%
Wouldn’t the blanket presidential preference primary still be legal in California, since the party affiliation of voters was included, permitting parties to ignore votes cast by voters of other parties?
That 2000 California presidential primary was a treasure trove of interesting data, since the election officials reported the vote separately for the members of each party. Yes, I think it would be legal. But the proponents of top-two wrote their measure to avoid changing the presidential primaries.
The way the constitution is written now implies that the presidential primary is a direct primary.
The constitution provides that the winner of a primary for a partisan office will appear on the general election ballot.
At the time this guarantee was written, there were written, there were close to 200 partisan offices (Congress, the legislature, board of equalization, and most statewide offices). The one exception was the presidential primary.
Now the only partisan office is the presidency. So the guarantee of nomination applies to all partisan offices with the exception of every partisan office.
So far, I’m confirmed to be on the primary ballots in two states, Idaho & California. These two states are worth 58 electoral votes, out of a goal of at least 270.
Thanks to ALL who made this possible!
J.R.Myers
Richard Winger, thanks so much for getting the 1968 New Hampshire Republican primary results. I see that President Johnson finished fourth in that primary — or fifth — since he and George Romney each got 1.7% of the vote.
I see that the other good showing by another party’s candidate in the N.H. primary was by President Reagan in the 1984 Democratic primary: Gary Hart (37.3%) Walter Mondale (27.9%) John Glenn (12.0%) Jesse Jackson (5.3%) George McGovern (5.2%) Ronald Reagan (5.0%) Ernest Hollings (3.5%) Alan Cranston (2.1%) Reubin Askew (1.0%).
[Personal note: that year, I headed Florida Democrats for Undecided] https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19880119&id=0-cbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=sHIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2231,6707045&hl=en
I am not sure if write-in votes are still allowed in New Hampshire primaries.
The best write-in result that’s well-known to us old-timers is the 1964 Republican primary, when non-candidate Henry Cabot Lodge, the 1960 Republican Vice-Presidential candidate and at the time Ambassador to South Vietnam, won: write-in Henry Cabot Lodge (35.5%) Barry Goldwater (22.3%) Nelson Rockefeller (21.0%) write-in Richard Nixon (16.8%)
Yes, write-ins are still allowed in New Hampshire primaries, including presidential primaries. In the 2012 Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire, there were 6,778 write-ins cast.
To Richard G., in 1984 there was a drive to write-in President Reagan on the Democratic primary ballot. I believe it was led by the Manchester Union-Leader. The result was Hollings, Cranston, and Askew left the race the next day.
I have informed the Trump campaign of the criminality of the fake leadership of the AIP. It is now up to them if they will allow Mr. Trump to have his campaign smeared by association with this Republican Party establishment controlled criminal organization; i.e.; the Robinson Crime Syndicate.
They will hopefully see that the actions of the Robinson Crime Syndicate are only done – A) to sanitize their criminality and corruption; and B) to betray the Trump campaign just as they betrayed the Constitution Party; i.e.; by being agents of the Republican Party Establishment, the mortal enemies of the Trump campaign and actually the Republic as a whole.
I totally agree with the all questions you raised. I need help with this too! By the way, if anyone is facing a problem of filling CA SOS Form SI-200, I’ve found a template here https://goo.gl/3ZvOTx. You also can esign the form and fax it.
The American people should start taking the independent and other parties seriously the democrats and the republicans have became a big joke.