California Presidential Preference RCR

Here’s what I understand about the new legislation before the California House. I have to apologize, in advance, for any mistakes I make. I wasn’t around for the last presidential primary so I made some assumptions (which may or may not be correct) in putting this information together.

As I understand the new California bill (SB-100 Burton), it only affects the Presidential Primary. All the other races (Senator, Congress, State, etc.), with the exception of the Central Committee people races, will continue to be done on an open primary basis, no change. The Central Committee people races will be done on a close primary basis, again, no change from the last primary in ’98.

Vote Once – Count Twice
SB-100 (as I understand it) says that for the Democratic Party, their ballot must have all the Presidential candidates listed (even candidates from the other parties). However, we must have the ability to report the results in 2 ways: how many total votes were given for all the candidates (of all parties) and how many votes for just the democrats for just democrat candidates. This has been often referred to by the SOS and counties as the “Vote Once – Count Twice” Presidential Preference. In SB-100 only the Democrats are forced to employ this method. All of the other 8 parties (including the Republicans) have the option of using this count method or using the “Vote Twice – Count Three Times” method.

In order to report results by party, the SOS is suggesting, putting party specific information at the bottom of the ballot. Another way to look at this is the Democratic ballot will look exactly like the Non Partisan ballot, but will have DEM voter group information on the ballot.

Vote Twice – Count Three Times
All the parties except the Democratic Party, have the option of choosing to use the “Vote Twice – Count Three Times” method. This method will have the a Presidential Preference race, exactly identical to the Non Partisan and Democratic race, with all the candidates for all the parties. Also, the ballot will contain an additional race with just the candidates specific to that party. So there will be 2 races, and the results will have to be reported 3 ways: all voters, all candidates; party voters, party candidates; and the results of the party specific Presidential Preference race.

The SOS and the SB-100 bill allow for crossing over in this count method. The SOS says that they understand that the parties which go for this method, may (or most likely) get confusing or irrelevant data; “not our concern” they say.

At this point, it looks like only the Republican Party is going to go the “Vote Twice – Count Three Times” route. However, all parties have the right to follow (except the Democrats) and have until July 1, 1999 to declare either way.

SB-100 Burton vs. SB-28 Peace
If SB-100 passes, then California will have the 2 Presidential Preference methods: “Vote Once – Count Twice” (for Non Partisan, Democrats and any other parties who choose) and “Vote Twice – Count Three Times” (for any parties who choose, except the Democrats). If the bill does not pass, SB-28 is the backup. This bill will only contain the “Vote Once – Count Twice” method for all parties.

Why Exclude the Democrats?
I am anticipating that everyone is going to ask this question. In the SB-100 bill, there is a special clause which excludes any party with more than 6 million registered members from undertaking the “Vote Twice – County Three Time” Presidential Preference method. Only the Democratic Party in California has more than 6 million registered members. I understand that the Democrats wrote that clause themselves, I guess they didn’t think it was such a good idea to do the “Vote Twice – Count Three Times” method.

Reports
The SOS require that our SOVC report contain the “Count Twice” information...that is for the Presidential Preference race with all candidates, we have to show how all the voters voted for all candidates and how just the party people voted for the party candidates. Our customers will probably also want a summary report with the same information.

Apparently DFM is already ready with their report for the “Count Twice”. They modified a close primary report to work with the Presidential Preference. I have already faxed everyone copies of this report. Notice they don’t exactly give the right information. Their “Party” reports give how all the party voters voted for all the candidates. Counties with the DFM report will have to go and manually tally up the votes in order to determine

Attached Examples
I am attaching in this email, sample ballots I built to illustrate the count methods. I am including one of each: NP, DEM and REP ballots. The ballots are in PDF format. You will need Adobe Acrobat reader to view these files. I have also faxed copies of report DFM as well as a diagram from the SOS to describe the bills: SB-100 and SB-28.