California election code section 13105(c) says, “If for a general election any candidate for President or Vice President has received the nomination of any additional party or parties, the name(s) shall be printed to the right of the candidate’s own party.” But section 13210(c) says, “In the case of candidates for President and Vice President, the words “Vote for one party” shall appear just below the heading “President and Vice President.”
The American Independent Party and the Republican Party are jointly nominating Donald Trump for President, so under the first-named law, Trump’s name will be listed once, with both party names after his name. But the second-named law then makes no sense, because the ballot will not give Trump voters the opportunity to vote for just one party for President.
The problem could be solved if 13210(c) were amended to say, “Vote for one.” The existing law is already discriminatory against independent presidential candidates, because it seems to suggest that there never are any independent presidential candidates on the ballot.
Could California list Trump twice, once for each party, with both parties using the same slate of presidential elector candidates to the Electoral College? Then they could just combine them similar to NY and other states where one runs under different party lines.
No, because the law doesn’t permit it. Also experience from other states shows that when a candidate is listed twice on a paper ballot (and most California ballots are paper, but counted electronically) no matter how clear the instructions are, some voters will vote for the candidate under both spaces. Then the vote-counting machine will think that voter voted twice for president, and consider that vote invalid.
Elections Code sections 8303 and 8304 don’t require independent slates of presidential electors to designate a presidential and vice presidential candidate.
California should list all the elector candidates ordered using the random alphabet, and tell the voter
“Vote for Not More Than 55”
Jim Riley,
That sounds o.k. to me if the GOP does not want to do the 50 – 5 split. However, that will not help
Trump or Pence. I think the 50 – 5 split with both parties giving the same agreed list of electors
is the best for both parties.
A high Republican official has called and asserted that the Republican State Chairman must not appoint any non-Republicans as Presidential or Vice Presidential Elector nominees. I have searched the Republican Bylaws and their Election Code sections and can find no such rule. If such a rule existed, then it would mean that our plan for both parties to appoint the same slate would not work.
That would be very bad for Trump since telling voters to pick 55 out of potentially 110 Pres & VP Elector candidates would be daunting & expensive to print. They’d be randomized with no indication of which party had submitted them.
We need help evidently convincing the Republicans that they have the power to make a deal with us. When challenged to produce the alleged rule, the Republican official said they din’t know off the top of their head where it was & also refused to cooperate to produce it. This information is very puzzling since the two Chairmen were proceeding in their verbal exchanges with an assumption of such a power.
Markham Robinson, Chairman of the AIP national party (AIPOTUS)