On May 20, some California activists who are informally working for Bernie Sanders filed a lawsuit against some California county election officials, and the Secretary of State. They are concerned that many votes, both independents and party members, have not been adequately informed about the rules for the June presidential primary. One of the plaintiffs is the American Independent Party. Having a qualified political party in the lawsuit may help to overcome standing problems. The case is Voting Rights Defense Project v DePuis, 3:16cv-2739, northern district.
The lawsuit complains that many independent voters have already sent in the mail ballots they received automatically, and these ballots do not include the presidential primary. If such independent voters then learn that they could have requested a Democratic, American Independent, or Libertarian presidential primary ballot, it is too late for them, because no one is permitted to vote twice.
The lawsuit also complains that some of the counties have given information only to independent voters, when they should have given the information to all voters. And the lawsuit complains about the fact that instructions and procedures differ from county to county. Here is a Sacramento Bee story about the lawsuit. Here is the original Complaint, which has since been amended because the original cover sheet referred to the “American Independence Party” instead of the American Independent Party. UPDATE: here is a somewhat more detailed story, from a newspaper in San Diego County.
Funny, because as I have heard it, the American Independent Party presidential primary ballot is NOT binding on the party to have that person be on the November ballot. It is in effect, just a poll.
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Jimmy,
Read California Election Code section 3006(c). About half of the County ROV’s in California did not comply with that section of the election code. That is the main point of the lawsuit.
NO primaries.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
California should move the regular primary to September, and permit state office and legislators to be elected by majority (this would apply to congressional candidates as well once Congress fixes their statute).
The presidential primary should be moved to March and switched to the 2000 format where any voter can vote for any presidential candidate. It would be up to each party to determine whether to count the votes from persons not affiliated with the party. The presidential primary should be made a direct primary, where the candidate who receives the most votes is nominated. California parties would be free to indicate which other primary results are to be tabulated in.
Jim Riley,
Why do you want to make the presidential primary a direct primary? I current see your idea as a very bad
idea.
The issue here was that many ROV’s did not comply with CA Elections Code 3006(c), viz., have a card for
cross-over NPP to file in the name of the cross-over ballot they wanted. Therefore, ballots went to
persons that did not make a lawful request for a cross-cover ballots.
Has anyone ever done a scholarly study of the effects of combining a presidential preference primary with a primary for state and federal offices? I imagine a lot of states have gone back and forth. It would be interesting to see what the effect of having primaries for Congress or the state legislature or governor on the same day as a presidential primary would be in terms of turnout and the types of candidates that get nominated for non-presidential offices.
@Mark Seidenberg,
There is no requirement that the CC/ROV inform voters of which party primaries they may cross-over into.
It appears that the SOS and the CC/ROV are ignoring CC/ROV Memorandum #10086 (issued 3/9/2010), telling voters affiliated with parties such as the Constitution, Coffee, Socialist, and Independent parties that they may request a presidential ballot for the American Independent, Libertarian, or Democratic party.
Further such voters will be denied the right to know whether any candidates share their party preferences.
@Mark Seidenberg,
If they used the 2000 presidential ballot, voters would not have to ask for party-specific presidential ballots, since there would be only one ballot – which would be pre-marked by election officials with the affiliation of the voter.
The instructions would indicate whether votes for a particular party would be used or not.
One reason for having a direct primary is to prevent parties from bait-and-switch. While the California Libertarian Party is letting voters express an opinion on the Libertarian nominee, the Libertarian Party will already have chosen their nominee by the time of the primary.
Jim Riley,
There is no party named “Independent Party”. “Independent Party is part of the name “American Independent
Party”. Electors in Placer and Imperial Counties that claim they are in the “Independent Party” are placed on the roles of the “American Independent Party”.