County clerk recorder Tommy Gong is watching after the “Unaffiliated” voters of SLO County. The clerk recorder’s office started sending postcards in mid-March to permanent vote-by-mail voters who’ve registered as unaffiliated for the purpose of party primaries.
Depending on voting preferences, those voters are eligible to partake in one of several primary elections. The Democratic, Libertarian and American Independent parties are allowing unaffiliated voters to chime in, so long as they request one of the party’s ballots by March 31. The first mailing of primary ballots will be May 9 for the June 7 election.
For those who still prefer to head down to their local precinct, if there is a polling place, the process is much simpler.
According to the California Secretary of State’s office, if a no party preference voter wishes to vote in the presidential primary election of a party allowing it, a “voter would simply ask their county elections office or ask a poll worker at their polling place for a ballot for that political party. A voter may not request more than one party’s ballot.”
Gong was quite specific in a press announcement however that, “to vote in the Presidential Primary for the Republican, Green or Peace & Freedom parties, unaffiliated voters must re-register to vote with that party before May 23, 2016.”
For the parties that do allow outside participation in their primaries, the practice is known as “crossover voting” and has some advantages in engaging independent voters as well as debatable disadvantages strategically.
In SLO County, Gong’s office reports, more than 20,000 postcards are being sent to, “unaffiliated voters who are also permanent vote-by- mail voters or who live in a vote-by-mail precinct so they can notify the elections office of their choice of ballots for the June election.”
If those voters are having trouble determining which ballot to request or if they’d like to make the commitment to register in a newfound party affiliation, a list of partisan candidates will be available on the California Secretary of State’s website at: www.sos.ca.gov. – Camas Frank