On October 15, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 837. It sets forth many steps that election officials must take, in order to inform independent voters that they are free to choose the primary ballot of parties that allow independents to vote in their primaries.

Currently the bill only applies to presidential primaries, because California currently doesn’t have party nominees for office other than president. But if the top-two system is ever repealed, and there are again party primaries for congress and state office, the new law will apply to those primaries as well.

During the period 2001-2010, both the Republican and Democratic Parties allowed independent voters to vote in all their congressional/state office primaries. But even though the California Secretary of State had regulations during that period, instructing county election officials to inform independent voters of their choices, no law existed, requiring such information to be disseminated.

In 2016, the Democratic, American Independent, and Libertarian Parties let independents vote in their presidential primaries; but the Republican, Green, and Peace & Freedom Parties did not. However, many independent voters did not realize they were free to vote in any presidential primaries, and complaints about that caused AB 837 to be introduced and passed.

Governor Brown’s office still hasn’t released any information on his actions regarding SB 149 (income tax returns for presidential primary candidates) and AB 469 (changes to the petition in lieu of filing fee). This post is being written at 5:30 p.m. California time.