Monday, June 6, 2016

California’s Crazy Election Quirks Limit Voter Choices and Create Chaos



(California's) primary system is the result of a reform that is only making things worse for voters....

California has made such a royal mess of its entire primary system that it needs to do a complete overhaul to restore the credibility of the system. Start with California’s overly generous early-voting law, which allows people to cast ballots a full four weeks before Election Day....

Then there is the issue of how California’s 2.2 million registered nonpartisan voters are treated (the term used for them is “Decline to State”). Republicans exclude them from their presidential primary, but at least they’re honest about it. Democrats require nonpartisan voters to specifically request a Democratic ballot in order to receive one in the mail with the names of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on it. Voters at the polls on Election Day must specifically ask for a Democratic ballot, and they won’t be given another one if they start marking a nonpartisan one by mistake.

These hoops may have real consequences. Hillary Clinton leads among registered Democrats by nine points in the latest Field Poll. But she trailed Sanders by an astonishing ratio of 2 to 1 among independent voters. An early exit poll conducted by Capitol Weekly found that 60 percent of nonpartisan voters either thought they would automatically receive a Democratic ballot or didn’t understand the process. Indeed, an analysis of the 322,000 nonpartisan mail ballots turned in by last Thursday show that only 40 percent of them even cast a vote for president....

Paul Mitchell, vice president of the California-based voter-analytics firm Political Data Inc., says the crossed signals are a direct result of the fact that California has changed its primary system to a “top two” model. For statewide and congressional offices, all candidates from every party are on one ballot in the primary, and then the top two candidates advance to the general election. For presidential primary elections, though, the parties hold separate primaries. In the presidential race, only registered Republicans may vote in the GOP primary, and Democrats can receive votes only from registered Democrats and people listed as “no party preference.” “This is a black eye on our process,” Mitchell told CBS News. “My real fear is . . . that there are going to be tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of voters who feel that they had a right to participate but something in the process failed them.” ...

The bizarre “top two” primary has been a feature of California’s elections since 2010, when it was approved by 54 percent of California voters. In effect, it abolished the state’s traditional primary and set up a “trial run” general election a full five months before the November vote, which is restricted to only the two top finishers in the June vote. There is no opportunity for voters to support an independent candidate or even to cast a write-in vote....

It’s sad to see the Golden State further tarnish its image with its confusing, fraud-prone, and unfair set of election laws. Only now, because of the race between Hillary and Bernie, is California’s problematic primary system receiving national attention. But here’s hoping the deserved ridicule will prompt some rethinking of supposed “reforms” that are only making things worse.

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