Thanks to Richard Winger of Ballot Access News for this post.
California Election code section 13105(c) says, “If for a general election any candidate for President or Vice President has received the nomination of any additional party or parties, the name(s) shall be printed to the right of the candidate’s own party.” But section 13210(c) says, “In the case of candidates for President and Vice President, the words “Vote for one party” shall appear just below the heading “President and Vice President.”
The American Independent Party and the Republican Party are jointly nominating Trump for President, so under the first-named law, Trump’s name will be listed once, with both party names after his name. But the second-named law then makes no sense, because the ballot will not give Trump voters the opportunity to vote for just one party for President.
The problem could be solved if 13210(c) were amended to say, “Vote for one.” The existing law is already discriminatory against independent Presidential candidates, because it seems to suggest that there never are any independent Presidential candidates on the ballot.
Could California list Trump twice, once for each Party, with both Parties using the same slate of Presidential Elector candidates to the Electoral College? Then they could just combine them similar to New York where it is called Fusion Voting, and other States where one runs under different Party lines.
Richard says No, because the law doesn’t permit it.
Also experience from other States shows that when a candidate is listed twice on a paper ballot, and most California ballots are paper, but counted electronically, no matter how clear the instructions are, some voters will vote for the candidate under both spaces. Then the vote-counting machine will think that voter voted twice for President, and consider that vote invalid.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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