No Party Preference Voters May Still Participate in Presidential Primary for 3 of 6 Political Parties in 2020

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Postcard received by NPP registered voters.

A record number of California voters are registered as No Party Preference. As of October 1, 2019, 26.7% of all registered voters in California selected No Party Preference (NPP), up from 24% in January 2016 and 16% in 2003.

But in the Presidential Primary on March 3, 2020, if you are NPP, you have no one to vote for. You will receive a primary election ballot without any candidates listed.

However, three parties have notified the Secretary of State that they will allow for “crossover” voting in the primary. What this means is that NPP voters may request a ballot for one of the three parties and vote for a presidential candidate for that party.

The parties that allow NPPers to vote in their primary are the American Independent Party, Democratic Party and Libertarian Party.

The parties that do not allow crossover voting in the primary are the Green, Peace and Freedom and Republican parties.

The Green, Peace and Freedom, and Republican presidential primaries are open only to voters registered with their respective parties.

You can verify your voter registration at VoterStatus.sos.ca.gov. If you’d like to change your political party, you may re-register at RegisterToVote.ca.gov.

NPP voters who vote in person may simply request their desired crossover ballot when checking in at the polls. NPP voters who vote-by-mail will receive a postcard from their county elections official in advance that will allow them to select a crossover ballot. If they don’t respond to the postcard, they may still request a crossover ballot up until election day at their polling place.

As of October 1, 2019, 80.65% of the 25,205,690 eligible voters in California, or 20,328,636, were registered to vote. 44.1% are Democrat, 26.7% are NPP, 23.6% are Republican and 5.6% is the other parties. The number of registered voters in California has increased over 3 million, from 17.3 million in January 2016 to 20.3 million today. www.sos.ca.gov