On Monday, March 14, U.S. District Court Andre Birotte, Jr., held oral arguments in Soltysik v Padilla, 2:15cv-7916. The issue is the constitutionality of California’s ballot labels in elections for Congress and state office. Members of qualified parties have the label “Party preference: (name of the party they are registered in).” But members of unqualified parties have the label “Party preference: none.” The plaintiffs are registered in the Socialist Party, which is not ballot-qualified in California.
It is difficult to predict the outcome. However, the judge seemed very interested in the case and very well-versed in the arguments on both sides. California does not have party nominees (except for President). The only other state with a similar system is Washington, where every candidate can choose any ballot label that is below 16 characters and is not obscene.
A decision is expected within two weeks.
I’m not sure what it means to say that “the plaintiffs are registered in the Socialist Party …”. Last time I checked, the SP is not attempting to qualify in California. Voters can write “Socialist Party” on their voter registration forms, but these registrations are not tallied or reported separately from all other organizations not listed as attempting to qualify.
Personally, I think that Soltysik’s case would be a lot stronger if the SP were attempting to qualify. On the other hand, a court victory, if they get one, would be a lot broader because it is not.
Prior to Proposition 14, voters on their affidavit of voter registration would indicate their intention to affiliate with a political party at the ensuing primary. A DTS voter is someone who declined to state their intention. If there were enough voters registered with a party, the state would conduct a primary for them.
Once the primary is over, California does not wipe out all partisan registrations, even though there is a lapse in “bodies attempting to qualify”, which is not actually a status, but rather a means of simplifying the election code language regarding qualification, and there is no guarantee that the larger parties will seek to contest future primaries. Americans Elect didn’t in 2012 nor 2014. The Democrats might not in 2018 or 2020. It is conjecture at this point, no matter how probable or improbable it may seem.
And any voter who is registered with the Natural Law Party was still intending to vote in the 2016 NLP presidential primary. The reason that there will be no primary is not because of a a change of expressed intent by individual voters, but rather that there was insufficient numbers expressing that intent.
Under SB 6, voter registrations were recast from “intent to affiliate with” to “party preference”. In doing this conversion, registrations were treated as two classes:
(1) “intent to affiliate with Party X” was converted to “prefer party X”; “Decline to State” was converted “No Party Preference”
Mimi Soltysik on his affidavit of voter registration said that he preferred the Socialist Party. He signed the affidavit to indicate that the information is truthful and correct, and subject to perjury charges. (Note I am presuming all this, I have no personal knowledge).
He did not decline to state a preference for the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Peace&Freedom, or American Independent parties.
That is a fantasy by a Secretary of State who would take off her reading glasses, close her eyes, turn the form upside down and put it next to her forehead, and imagine what the voter meant.
Jim Riley,
You got it right as to what CA Secretary of State Bowen did in 2008 with the POTUS vote in Los Angeles County when she “closed her eyes, turn the
“ballot” upside down and put it next to her forehead and imagine what was
the voter meant”.
That was how to determine if a DTS voter meant to vote Democrat or American Independent.
Now we have William “Bill” Lussenheide who was a Republican until October 24, 2008, with Charles Deemer (purported California State
Chairman of a claimed designated political body called “Independent
Party” in California) placing forms to their heads which state as a
party affiliation as “independent” and determine that they wanted to
affiliate with a party headed by Charles M. Deemer who is a National
Committeeman of the Constitution Party of California which had 338
California Electors on January 5, 2016.
The case on that subject is now in the U. S. District Court of the
Eastern District of California, entitled “Independent Part and William
Lussenheide v. Padilla”. It was filed on February 16, 2016.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
Texas conducts special elections in the same way that California does, without party nominations. There are no limitations on party affiliation on the ballot. The term “qualified party” is meaningless for those type of elections.
In California the only right so-called qualified parties retain with respect to voter-nominated offices is the right to have formal endorsements placed in the sample ballot mailed to all voters before an election. In the Election Code, SB 6 explicitly granted this endorsement right to “qualified” party. Every other change regarded the party affiliation or party preference of individual voters as they have personally expressed on their affidavit of voter registration.