Currently, county officials are required to send only one notification, a postcard asking independent voters if they want a “crossover” ballot. Given the timing of California’s March 3 primary, that reminder is likely to hit most voters’ mailboxes in November or December—squeezed between all the holiday cards, catalogs and bills.
With Democrats a supermajority in the Legislature, the bill is now in the Senate after sailing through the Assembly, despite almost every Republican voting no. No one argued against the idea, but GOP legislators were unconvinced that the price tag for the extra postcards—pegged in the low tens of millions of dollars—was a worthy state expense, not to mention that it might pump up participation among those less likely to vote conservative on the rest of the ballot. The League of Women Voters expressed support, noting that “voter confusion suppresses turnout, feeds a false narrative of unfairness or fraud, and destabilizes the electoral system.”
Along with the Democrats, the American Independent, Green, Libertarian and Peace and Freedom parties have traditionally allowed non-affiliated voters to participate in their presidential primaries.
But for over a decade, the Republican Party has been more exclusive: It has allowed only registered Republicans to cast ballots in its presidential contest. Independents who want to vote either for or against President Donald Trump in the 2020 primary will likely need to change their party affiliation to Republican. (The parties will make a formal decision about how to conduct their primaries later this year.)
The particular voting bloc that California omits by default from its presidential primary could be crucial this year.
No party preference voters (that’s election-speak for political independents) now make up the second largest political affiliation in the state, behind Democrats. They’re also by far the fastest growing group. That’s especially true since last year when the state began automatically registering Californians to vote when they applied for a driver’s license—with no party as the default choice.
At the same time, an expanding majority of California voters now vote by mail.
Combined, there are nearly 3.6 million independent permanent “absentee ballot” voters in the state, or roughly 18% of all registered voters, according to Political Data Inc.