Two members of the California Assembly, Democrat Adam Gray and Republican Kristen Olsen, have introduced ACA 13, a proposed constitutional amendment. It alters presidential primaries and presidential general elections. Here is the text.

All presidential primary candidates would appear on a single primary ballot, and all voters would use that ballot. Also, independent presidential candidates would appear on that primary ballot. The proposed constitutional amendment says the independent who receives the most votes in the presidential primary would be placed on the November ballot. Election officials would be required to produce a vote tally for the voters from each party, so that the qualified political parties would know how their own members voted in this presidential primary.

The part of the amendment relating to independent presidential candidates is not constitutional. It would require independent presidential candidates to have announced their candidacy by early March. But the U.S. Supreme Court decision Anderson v Celebrezze says that states must allow presidential candidates running outside the two major parties to announce as late as the middle of the year.

Another problem with the amendment is that California lets new parties qualify as late as July of the election year, yet the California primary for president and all other office is in early June.

If this proposal had been in effect in 2016, the presidential primary ballot used by every voter would have contained 39 presidential candidates seeking the nomination of a qualified California party, plus an undetermined number of “independent” candidates, which could create a very long primary ballot.

The Dakota Free Press has this story about the June 9 ballot access ruling in Libertarian Party of South Dakota v Krebs. Thanks to Bob Newland for the link.