CA: 85% of NPP voters have not requested Democratic primary ballots

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.mercurynews.com/politics-government/ci_29962782/independents-favor-sanders-but-their-turnout-is-hardly

California's independent voters are struggling to figure out how to cast ballots in next Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary, threatening Bernie Sanders' chances to carry the state and making the race even more difficult for pollsters to handicap.

Polls show Sanders with a big lead among independents, but they can't vote for him unless they request a Democratic ballot. And that's a step that as of last week 85 percent of independents who vote by mail had failed to take, according to Political Data Inc., a Los Angeles County firm that tracks voter activity.

The prospect of poor participation among independents was just one of several bits of bad news Sanders encountered Tuesday as he continued his uphill fight against Hillary Clinton, making campaign stops in Emeryville and Santa Cruz.

[Cha]

1. Thanks Starry.. I all can say is.. Good luck

to Hillary in California!

I'm so sick of burnie and his damn voting problems.

[workinclasszero]

4. Looks like Bernie's fanbase will abandon him at the ballot box again

Those people love a rally but actual registering and voting?

Not so much. LOL

[Cha]

9. burnie should have taught them @ the rallies how to vote.. not that I

want to give him any ideas.

Is it too much to hope for that they do abandon him? burnie needs a big a shock of reality.. he's not going to give it to himself.

[workinclasszero]

14. I think Bernie loves the spotlight and the adulation of the faithful crowds Cha

I love Hill people. We get it on at the ballot box! Yippee!!

[Cha]

17. Yeah, it's so obvious..

when burnie goes back to the senate.. he'll be in the chamber day-dreaming about rallies.. sad he lost 'cause there would be a million people outside mitch mconnells window right nowl

I love Hill peeps too.. so pragmatic! workin~

[puffy socks]

13. Because they're mostly young and looking for a party atmosphere.

Voting isn't a party.

[workinclasszero]

23. True enough

But its a great feeling, especially in a tight race if your candidate pulls out the win and you made room in your life to register and go vote.

[Starry Messenger]

12. His strategy was to reach out to indies.

He should have had a whole department devoted to figuring this stuff out and training people on what they needed to do.

[Gothmog]

22. Sanders let go his field organizers in favor of TV ads

[Arkansas Granny]

34. The organizational aspect is not nearly as fun as getting big crowds cheering you on.

Birds landing on the podium may draw big cheers, but it's hard work that draws the votes.

[BobbyDrake]

2. I don't fully understand CA's ballot process, but don't those independents also have to turn in...

...their NPP ballot in exchange for a Democratic one? Someone registered NPP can't just walk up and ask for a Democratic ballot, otherwise they could possibly have voted twice.

Call me skeptical that most of Bernie's supporters are going to know that part of the rule.

[tonyt53]

3. Established rules have meant nothing so far to Bernie's supporters, so why change now.

[puffy socks]

16. I can't wait to hear how the election was rigged by the DNC and Hillary

because these people can't be bothered to read and follow election laws.
The Bernie camp hates the very establishment they need in order to gain Progressive seats and so they continue shooting themselves in the foot by trying to force their way through it or go around it. Is it really that hard to understand that you cannot change the system from outside the system without violence? Bernie should know this and yet he continues to promote the idea even though he has failed miserably getting any accomplishments toward any of his goals legislated.

[yeoman6987]

29. Voting should be easy for everyone

I find it hard to believe that democratic supporters are cool with this.

[BlueCaliDem]

32. Registered Democrats aren't cool with disenfranchising any voter, true, but we don't want NPP's

voting for other Parties and then also turn around and vote Democratic Party in the same race. That's voter fraud, and no Democrat supports voter fraud.

If registered NPPs want to vote for Bernie via mail, they're out of luck. It's too late now. But they can bring their NPP ballot to their polling place and exchange their NPP ballot for a Democratic Party ballot and vote.

Only a handful will take the extra steps to do this.

[mercuryblues]

39. registered democrats

are voting in the primary, no problem. Non-democrats have to take an extra step to be able to vote in the primary. They could easily rectify that extra step in the future.... change their registration to D, if they want to vote in the D primary.

[Starry Messenger]

41. I register online. Takes me 10 minutes.

The instructions for every part of the process are sent to everyone's house. What else do we need to do, yeo? Go to their houses and read the directions to them? Campaigns can do that, they do, via house visits and phone-banking. It's not the job of the state to spoonfeed.

[workinclasszero]

6. Rules are undemocratic and a tool of the Oligarchy

Don't you know?

[Cha]

10. #wallstreet

[Starry Messenger]

8. I'm not sure. I just vote by mail.

I think they can check to see if you already mailed in your ballot though. It's all in a database.

[BlueCaliDem]

51. Just checked and my ballot has been received and it has been counted already! Woohoooo!

[Starry Messenger]

52. Yay!!

I wish we got an "I Voted" sticker, but everything else about mail-in voting rocks.

[still_one]

18. That is correct Bobby. On election day, if they were registered as NPP, all they would have to do

exchange their ballot for one of the other parties that allow it.

However, if they registered as NPP, and vote by mail, and didn't specify which ballot they wanted, they will be sent a non-partisan ballot. If they already mailed that non-partisan ballot in, there is no redo. The exchange can only occur if they haven't submitted the ballot.

These RULES have only been in effect for over 10 years

I kind of suspected something like that was happening when Sanders started filing all these ridiculous lawsuits.

This information is made very clear in the voter pamphlets that ever registered voter gets.

If they didn't hate the Democratic party so much, they could have registered as Democrats in the first place, and avoided all this

[stopbush]

25. That's true if you are voting by mail. You can go to the polls, turn in your NPP ballot

for a D ballot the day of. I don't know the process if you wanted to change your ballot early and mail in a D ballot.

If you don't vote by mail, you had until May 23 to change your party registration to NPP or D to vote in the D primary. We use voting machines here, so I imagine if you are an NPP you show up at the polls, tell them you want to vote in the D primary and they direct you to a machine set up for the D primary (as opposed to the R or AIP primaries that are also going on).

[BlueCaliDem]

5. "and making the race even more difficult for pollsters to handicap." Very interesting perspective.

Question is, for whom do pollsters try to handicap the Democratic race?

[OilemFirchen]

7. What a shock.

We fucking levitated the Pentagon.

They can't even click a virtual button.

[UtahLib]

11. Cripes, here they go again with the pre-planned excuses. eom

[Starry Messenger]

20. That train is never late

A DUer told me this weekend that probably only Hillary supporters in CA got the proper instructions for voting--like the SOS would know that in advance and have the money to send bad instructions to the putative Bernie supporters.

[sarae]

28. LOL

I have to give them props for being very creative with their new conspiracy theories.

[workinclasszero]

53. Its so hard fighting the Oligarchy

when they are psychic like that.

[Starry Messenger]

55. It's amazing they let us vote, since they already have a vision of who wins!

All part of the plan, I guess!

[Il_Coniglietto]

15. Why is it so hard to take 10 minutes to google this stuff?

Some of these rules may not be well known, but this isn't 1916. Most voters have the world at their fingertips through their smartphones.

I find it a little incredible that supporters supposedly passionate about change and democracy can't take a little time to research how to do it.

[still_one]

19. Every registered NPP voter is sent a voter pamphlet. It explains

everything there. One catch though


You have to read it

[Il_Coniglietto]

24. Even easier! I'm happy CA is so proactive re: outreach.

That said, at some point, you really do have to take some responsibility for yourself.

Unfortunately, I think we all know the excuses will start rolling in the evening of June 7.

[Mz Pip]

37. Mr Pip is NPP

He got the form in the mail to register with a party way before we ever received the absentee ballot. He filled it out and a couple of weeks later we got the Democratic ballot. Not hard at all.

[still_one]

38. shhhhhhh, its a secret

[Mz Pip]

46. LOL

Some secret! He researched nothing, asked for nothing. The info and card to request a Democratic ballot came totally unsolicited.

I guess he's special!

[Gothmog]

21. Sanders fired the field organizers in California to focus on TV ads and big events

One of my friends was in San Diego to do field work back at the end of the New York primary but was let go. The head of the California field operations was also fired.

One of the goals of the field operation was going to be to help independents know how to request democratic ballots and be able to vote. The lack of field operation appears to be hurting Sanders here.

[forjusticethunders]

45. so fake

this whole thing is a fucking sham

Che Shirt Socialism. "Revolution" as a mass-marketed product. It's so fucking fake. When people in my age group wake up and see how badly they've been taken advantage of it's not going to be pretty because Sanders isn't selling "change", he's selling a fucking focus-group tested product.

[beachbum bob]

26. we have watch as an amateurish of a campaign that we have ever seen

by sanders where in each and every instance they did not or ignored the voting rules...and failed to even inform their supporters...

a couple hundreds millions of dollars for incompetence


you can't run a country if you can't even run your own campaign and then its nothing but childish aaccusations of fraud...theft...blah blah

when its just plain old incompetence starting at the top....and why bernie is NO leader. Cant even surround himself with competent campaign advisors

unless its it complain the rules hard hard.....

bammmm

[Agnosticsherbet]

27. You do know that at the polls NPP can request a Democratic Ballot?

You just walk into your polling place and ask.

I think the Mercury News story is rather dumb.

They can only request American Independent Party, Democratic Party, and Libertarian Party ballots. The Republican Party and the Green Party are not open to expanded Democracy.

[Treant]

31. The story reads

"85 percent of independents who vote by mail" and not 85% of independents, so it applies as far as it goes.

We'll have to wait for the forensics next Wednesday to see who did and did not bother to show at the polls, or to request a Democratic ballot.

[otohara]

30. Independent Means Never Having

to pay attention to rules, deadlines, platforms, etc... they just flip/flop back/forth because governing and change takes time. No instant gratification means it's time to try that other party out again for awhile.

I wish they'd quit calling them Independent - unaffiliated is what they are. Years of phone banking I've learned these so-called independents are the most uniformed voters in the land.

[BainsBane]

33. This is the problem with his refusing to devote resources to organizing

He should have volunteers organized to inform voters about this, but his CA campaign director quit over Sanders' refusal to devote resources to organizing and instead focus on rallies and advertising.

[Starry Messenger]

43. I don't blame him for quitting.

Who'd want that failure on their resume? It will be interesting to hear the backstage stories after all of this is over.

[workinclasszero]

54. No kidding

A good author needs to dig deep on this election and write a great book about it.

[geek tragedy]

35. Didn't Sanders supporters dismiss southern Democrats as being low-information voters

who didn't have the Internet?

[Starry Messenger]

44. Yes.

And I think this pool of voters were being lauded the other day as highly informed tech-savvy intelligentsia. They obviously don't live here, as I do, snarf.

[still_one]

36. While this is interesting, anyone in California should not assume anything, and

those supporting Hillary need to get out the vote.

We cannot take anything for granted

[mercuryblues]

40. wait. whut?

I just heard Jane Sanders ay that Bernie is bringing in millions of voters into the Democratic fold. She even said they were registering 1st time democrats....yet their voters are (falsely) whining that because they are registered NNP, they can't vote in the primary. Both can't be true.

[Maru Kitteh]

42. Everyone is invited to the party, but those who can't be bothered to RSVP

Shouldn't be surprised when the menu items are chosen for them.

[Politicub]

47. You can't make this stuff up

Bernie is able to draw a crowd - I will hand him that. The problem is, drawing a crowd doesn't translate into votes in most states.

I'm not sure he really wants to win. He's a smart cookie. He should know you need a strong ground game to go along with the vanity rallies. Otherwise it's just a feel good moment.

[R B Garr]

48. This is ridiculous. If they can operate their selfie phone cameras, they can make a simple

phone call on that same gadget to the Registrar's office to ask some simple questions. Very simple questions.

It looks like a lot of them bought Bernie's message too seriously about teaching the Democratic party a lesson and leaving in a snit to make a statement about "independents". Instead, this is what they brought on themselves. They didn't want to vote for Bernie in the Democratic party, so...

It's a good thing the California judge saw through their pathetic lawsuit where they wanted more time to figure out how to get more people to vote for Bernie past the State deadline. This can't be over soon enough. It's so tiresome.

[jimw81]

49. Goes back to one of the flaws of sanders campign

bad organizing. If u disagree with them, you get labeled. If process isnt open to indys,Scream voter supression. It comes down to bad responsibility On the campign itself. How can u have a bad organization in a primary and expect to win a general?

[beachbum bob]

50. this statistic is telling....