California has a new format for its voter registration form, for the “political party” choice. The form asks “Do you want to register with a political party?”. The “Yes” block is on the left; the “No” block is on the right.

Under the “Yes” block, the form lists the ballot-qualified parties in alphabetical order, with a checkbox next to the name of each. Of course there is also a blank line for someone who wants to register into a party that is not ballot-qualified.

The new form is designed to deal with the problem that some people wish to register “Independent”, but the legislature forbids the Secretary of State from listing that choice on the form. This has caused some people to register into the American Independent Party because they have thought that is the proper way to show oneself as an independent.

In California, only charter cities have the freedom to use Instant-Runoff Voting to elect their own city officers. Davis, California voters voted in 2006 to use IRV, but since Davis is not a charter city, the vote cannot have any effect. But on July 22, the Davis City Council voted to put the question of whether to become a charter city on the November 2008 ballot.

An NBC/WSJ Poll released on July 23 shows these results for president: Obama 48%, McCain 35%, Nader 5%, Barr 2%, other and undecided 10%.

When the pollster only mentions the two major party candidates to respondents, the results are: Obama 47%, McCain 41%, other and undecided 12%. See here for more details. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for this link.