The national office of the Libertarian Party has collected the names and details for twenty-one party members who won elections on November 5, 2019.
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On November 6, the California Secretary of State released a Report of Registration, the first state tally since February 2019. All six of the qualified parties increased their share of the registration. The number of independent voters decreased, both as a percentage and in absolute numbers.
The new percentages are: Democratic 44.06; Republican 23.58%; American Independent 2.86%; Libertarian .84%; Green .45%; Peace & Freedom .44%; unqualified parties .56%; unknown .47%; independent (“no party preference”) 26.74%.
The percentages in February 2019 were: Democratic 43.11%; Republican 23.57%; American Independent 2.59%; Libertarian .77%; Green .44%; Peace & Freedom .38%; unqualified parties .53%; unknown .34%; independent 28.26%.
Among the unqualified parties, the Common Sense Party has 5,519, the California National Party 568, the Constitution Party 251.
The requirement for a group to become a qualified party at the recent deadline was 66,770 registrations. That equals .33% of the number of registered voters excluding the “unknown” voters. “Unknown” voters are people who were registered automatically because they have drivers licenses or state ID cards. Those voters have not expressed a decision about party membership so they are classed as “unknown”.
The Common Sense Party had claimed that it had 15,000 registrations, but the official figure is lower. The center of registered voters in the Common Sense Party is San Diego County.
On November 5, the voters of Easthampton, Massachusetts, approved using ranked choice voting for most city office. Thanks to David Cary for this news.
The American Independent Party, which is ballot-qualified in California and has its own presidential primary in March 2020, has asked the Secretary of State to list nine presidential candidates on its ballot. Most of them are also seeking the nomination of some other party as well. These candidates will not appear unless they tell the Secretary of State that they want to be on the AIP ballot.
The candidates who are seeking the Republican nomination as well, and which are on the AIP list, are President Donald Trump, William Weld, Joe Walsh, Mark Sanford, and Rocky De La Fuente.
Others on the AIP list are: Phil Collins, who is already the Prohibition Party nominee; Don Blankenship, who is seeking the Constitution Party nomination; J.R. Myers, who is seeking the nomination of his newly-formed Life and Liberty Party; and Tom Hoefling, who was the AIP presidential nominee in 2012.
On November 6, the California Supreme Court heard arguments in Patterson v Padilla, the case concerning the state law that requires presidential primary candidates to reveal their income tax returns. The Court seemed skeptical that the law comports with the California Constitution, which tells the Secretary of State to put all “recognized” candidates on the ballot. See this story.
UPDATE: see this story as well.