Can You Vote In Another Parish If You Can't Vote In The One You Are Registered In?

If you're confused almost how to vote in California's presidential primary, y'all're in good visitor with Susan Sarandon.

At the beginning of January, the "Thelma and Louise" actress and Sanders enthusiast issued a public service announcement on Twitter: "California voters: brand sure to switch from independent to democrat (sic) in guild to vote for ⁦@BernieSanders."

Merely one problem: She'due south wrong. Political independents (known in California election parlance every bit "no political party preference" voters) do not need to switch parties to vote in the Democratic presidential master — the only need to request a Democratic election starting time.

Technically, Sarandon was retweeting the account @TimOnTheTractor — only Tim (presumably) doesn't have an University Award. He as well doesn't have 653,000 Twitter followers to misinform.

To be fair, the minutiae of California ballot law is really disruptive! And Sarandon is inappreciably lonely. Election day in California is March 3, just already social media has become a bipartisan chorus of wrongness about the what, how and why of the state's presidential main.

If you're unsure about how to go the ballot yous want, why things here are so complicated or what presidential primaries are all about, hither are four things to know before you vote:

The presidential primary will not use the familiar "Top Ii" ballot

California voters can be forgiven for assuming that political party registration doesn't really affair.

In 2010 voters backed a measure to create the land's nonpartisan "summit ii" election organisation, in which all primary voters fill out a ballot with every candidate on information technology — regardless of either the voter's or the candidate's political party. The peak 2 winners then move on to the general ballot ballot — even if they're both from the same party.

In races for state legislative and congressional seats, the superlative two method will yet reign on the 2020 ballot.

Simply when y'all vote in the presidential main, it's back to the old partisan organization: Democrats on the Autonomous ballot, Republicans on the Republican ballot, and so on.

So while voting in California unremarkably goes like this under the acme 2:

In the presidential principal, it looks a little more like this:

No Party Preference voters: Pay attention!

Registered Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians and other party members, rest bodacious. You are guaranteed a primary election with all of your party's presidential contenders on it.

But voters who don't belong to a political political party — the fastest growing voting cake in the land — will have to navigate a more daunting set of obstacles to cast a presidential principal vote.

Some parties take "members simply" policies:

The Republican Party
The Dark-green Party
The Peace and Freedom Party

If you want to vote in one of these three primaries, y'all'll have to join that party. You tin can't exercise information technology equally a member of whatsoever other party, or fifty-fifty as a "no party preference" independent. No exceptions.

The post-obit 3 parties do allow political independents to bandage ballots in their presidential primaries (though not members of other parties):

The Democratic Party
The Libertarian Party
The American Independent Party (which is the party's name and non to be confused with beingness a party-less political independent)

Simply — and this is an important caveat — these voters do have to specifically request the ballot they desire.

For those who vote in person, this is a cinch. Just go into your polling identify when information technology's time to vote and ask. But independents who vote by mail service need to allow your county know which ballot they want ahead of time.

Maybe yous received a postcard that looks like this:

If so, fill up it out and postal service information technology dorsum. If you missed the deadline or lost the card, and you're non going to vote in person, e-mail or call your county registrar's function and let them know which ballot you lot want. Yous can observe the contact information hither.

And if y'all've already received a ballot in the mail service and were disappointed by the lack of presidential candidates, exercise not fill it out. You can always request a new election, but trying to vote twice is frowned upon (and as well punishable as "voter fraud") .

The California Secretary of Country'south part has an all-in-i website where y'all can check your registration condition, register or modify your party affiliation online, and acquire more near the presidential principal.

You can make registration changes online through February 18. After that, you'll have to practise information technology in person — which you can exercise up to and even on Election Twenty-four hour period itself.

xv counties are doing things a little differently this time

If you live in one of the counties highlighted beneath, voting might look a little different this yr.

In 2016, California passed the "Voter Option Act," a police aimed at modernizing the state's election system, such that:

Every registered voter gets a ballot in the post
Voters are no longer required to go to a specific polling place, but can vote at any number of voting centers or drop-off points
Voters tin can cast their ballots in person kickoff 11 days earlier, and upward to and including, Ballot Twenty-four hour period

In 2018, five counties (Madera, Napa, Nevada, Sacramento, and San Mateo) rolled out the new system. This year, 10 more than volition join their ranks. That'due south xv counties in all containing 49% of the country population.

This is primal for "no party preference" voters living in these counties who may not get the ballot they desire in the mail. See the previous section for details.

Delegate math tin be complicated

In country legislative races, the electoral calculations are straightforward: The ii candidates who earned the well-nigh votes, regardless of party, motility on to the final voting round in Nov.

But the math is trickier in the presidential principal: denizen votes are used to select party convention delegates, who then select the party's nominee for the White Business firm.

Allow'south focus on the Democratic contest, which is bound to be the most interesting i. Nationwide there will be 4,532 Democratic delegates, 494 come up from California.

In the Golden State, presidential hopefuls can earn delegates three ways:

By winning a large share of the statewide vote.
Past winning a large share of the vote in any ane of the country's 53 congressional districts.
By successfully schmoozing party leaders.

The 144 statewide delegates are awarded in proportion to a candidate'due south performance across the state — up to a betoken. To accept a recent polling average from FiveThirtyEight equally a hypothetical election result, if Joe Biden wins 23% of the California vote, he would win the support of at least 23% of those statewide delegates.

Why "at least"? Party rules require candidates to demonstrate a baseline level of electoral viability: they only earn delegates if they win at least 15% of the vote.

But three candidates exceed that threshold in the polls: Biden with 23%, Sen. Bernie Sanders with 22% and Sen. Elizabeth Warren with 17%. By that math, Biden would get 36% of the delegates because he earned 36% of the primary vote separate only among the candidates who exceeded the benchmark.

Another 271 delegates are awarded by congressional commune. That gives candidates who take strong back up in a particular region of the state an opportunity to earn delegates even if they don't perform well overall.

But not all districts are created equal. The Autonomous Party assigns betwixt 4 and seven delegates to each district depending on the number of Democratic voters who live and vote there. Thus, San Francisco gets 7, while the land's rural, bourgeois northeastern district gets 4.

For these delegates, the proportional logic is the same just at a smaller scale: delegates are divvied upward amidst candidates who earn more than than 15% of the vote in each commune.

The last 79 delegates are equanimous of the political party elite — people similar Gov. Gavin Newsom, the country'southward sitting members of Congress, the pinnacle members of the state party. They automatically get a spot at the convention. They're also "superdelegates," meaning they can vote for whomever they want.

But superdelegates don't have every bit much ability as they used to, thanks to a post-2016 change in the party rules designed to wrest some control from the party institution. When regular delegates first vote for the nominee at their convention in Milwaukee next July, super-delegates volition accept to sit out the vote. It's only if a candidate doesn't win a majority of delegate votes outright in the first round practice the superdelegates and then get to weigh in.

The concluding fourth dimension that happened: 1952.

Video: Delegates, explained

Note: This post has been updated with the right number of Democratic delegates from California and chosen at the congressional commune level. An earlier version was based on incorrect numbers supplied by the state party.