About This Election
[...]
About the Open Primary
California has a new Open Primary law that has fundamentally changed the way we conduct elections. Before the Open Primary law, voters used to receive ballots that listed only the candidates of the voter's party. If you wanted to vote in a different party's primary election, you had to be a member of that party. In 1996, California voters changed the rules when we passed Prop. 198, the "open primary" initiative (though it is technically a blanket primary), which allows any voters to vote for any candidate of any party. The 1998 Primary was the first California election conducted under the open primary law. Here's how it works: if you are registered with the Libertarian Party, for example, you can now vote for a Reform Party candidate for President, a Republican for U.S. Senate, a Democrat for State Assembly, etc.
However, the national political parties objected to California's new open primary, particularly because their party rules prohibit people who are not members of their party from casting ballots in the Primary. The Democratic and Republican parties said they would not count California's primary votes when deciding how to allocate delegates at their national nominating conventions unless the rules changed. California lawmakers, who had already passed a law to move California's primary up to early March in order to give California more clout in the Presidential election, passed a new law in 1999 that seeks to accomodate the political parties and respect the open primary law.
As a result, on March 7, California election officials will count our ballots twice -- one count of votes cast in the Presidential election by party members, and one count of the votes cast by all California voters. Both vote counts will be announced, but only the first vote will count toward allocating delegates for presidential candidates.
Either way, your vote counts. It just counts more if you and the candidate you support are members of the same party. It gets even more confusing, because this voting and counting method only applies for the Presidential election. In all the other partisan contests on your ballot, such as your congressional and legislative races, you can vote for any candidate of any party and it will help that candidate get his or her party's nomination. -- KA
This page first published February 10, 2000 -- last updated February 10, 2000
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