A Million Independent Voters Risk Being Irrelevant in California’s Presidential Primary

As political independents and absentee voters make up an increasing share of the California electorate—one disproportionately made up of non-white and young voters—that could leave a large, perhaps determinative, portion of the electorate confused and left out of the process.

Pending legislation by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, a Democrat from San Diego, won’t necessarily make the process easier, but it aims to at least ensure that voters get plenty of advance notice.

Her bill AB 681 would require county election officials to send three notifications to registered voters reminding them which party they’re registered with—and if they’re registered with no party preference but want to vote in a party’s presidential primary, that they’ll need to request that party’s ballot. (Assuming their party of choice allows them to; more about that below.)

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.

If past voting behavior is any indication, turning out a younger, less-white, less-consistently engaged contingent of voters will benefit Democratic candidates on the left. In 2016, a group of political independents backing Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders sued the state for denying them the ability to vote in the state’s primary. They lost.

As things stand now, “if you’re not a hyper-aware voter, you might miss being able to vote for Democrats in one of the most exciting elections of a generation,” said Adriel Hampton, a political consultant who works with progressive candidates. “This bill does go a long way in helping address some of the problems we saw in the 2016 primary.”

But not far enough for some.

Chad Peace, a legal strategist for the Independent Voter Project, which promotes nonpartisan elections, said providing voters with more information would not fix the underlying problem. Unaffiliated voters still would have “a significantly more difficult time participating” in the political process.

His solution: Rather than giving independents a blank presidential primary ballot by default, offer them a “public ballot” with all the candidates of all major parties listed together.

It’s a proposal that would make the California presidential primary look much more like the top two primary system used for other federal and state races across California. But it would also run afoul of the primary rules set by the national parties.

So be it, said Peace.

The state should not be “subject to any consideration about a private national party’s rules in determining how they’re going to create a process that works for the voters,” he said. He added that the Independent Voter Project plans to sue the state “relatively soon.”

Political Data’s Mitchell called such a “public ballot” a “clean” solution, but one that risks creating a conflict between California and the national parties, with the national parties threatening not to accept the state’s votes.