Statewide Elections Get a Whole New Rule Book

When reformers were pitching big changes in the way California conducts its primary elections, they touted their proposal as the best thing since the proverbial sliced bread.

No longer would voters be limited to choices of white or wheat (Republican or Democrat) depending on their party affiliation. Instead, like customers in a bakery they could pick and choose from assorted delights--Republican, Democrat, Green Party, American Independent-- mixing and matching without regard to their own registered preferences.

The initiative passed overwhelmingly. More than two years later, on June 2, California voters will get the first taste of their creation: On primary day, any registered voter will be able to cast a ballot for any candidate of any party.

The adoption of this “blanket” primary amounts to the most radical change in California elections in nearly 40 years.

Already, it has forced candidates and their campaign strategists to rethink how to run for office. “The old playbook got thrown out,” said David Puglia, a strategist for Republican gubernatorial hopeful Dan Lungren.

The bigger test will likely come when Californians step into the voting booth. “We’re creatures of habit. in our voting as well as other facets of our life,” said David Olson, a University of Washington expert on primary elections. “It’s going to be baffling to a significant portion of the electorate.”

Will the blanket primary produce radically different results? Will it yield more solution-oriented, less extreme statewide candidates, as proponents suggest? Alternatively, will it so blur the distinction among candidates, all crowding the middle, that voters effectively choose from a field of political neuters, as opponents insist?

Not likely, judging from the experience in a handful of states, including more than 60 years of blanket primaries in Washington state.

Even with all the choices in the bakery case, voters who prefer white or wheat tend to stick with those. Although cross-party voting occurs, it has never been proven to change the outcome. Candidates with starkly defined ideologies-- essentially, the most extreme-- continue to prosper.

And as for plain-vanilla politics, “The notion our elections are boring, that candidates don’t take strong stances on anything and we just sit around and stare at the water all day is just not accurate,” said Washington state election chief Gary McIntosh, as the noonday sun glinted off Puget Sound. “Politics here is very robust.”

The blanket-primary initiative, Proposition 198, grew out of the frustration of a handful of political moderates who felt that too often their choices came down to opposite poles, “a Leon Trotsky-type Democrat vs. an Attila the Hun-type Republican,” as one put it.

With $200,000 in seed money from the late David Packard, the Silicon Valley pioneer and a GOP centrist, supporters defied the political establishment--leaders of the two major parties were among the fiercest opponents--and won passage of Proposition 198 in March 1996 with 59.5% of the vote. Exit polls found the initiative had even stronger backing--almost 70%--from independents and self-described middle-of-the-roaders.

Overnight, California switched from the most restrictive primary-balloting system in the country to the least. (Alaska, Washington and Louisiana are the only other states with blanket primaries.)

Under the old rules, a California voter could choose only among candidates of the party in which the voter was registered. Those who declined to state a party preference were effectively disenfranchised in the primary, ineligible to vote in partisan races such as those for governor, Congress and the state Legislature.

The switch to an anything-goes primary amounted to the most dramatic operational overhaul in elections since 1959, when the state abandoned a longtime system of “cross-filing” that let candidates run for the nomination of multiple parties.

As such, it has forced political candidates and their strategists to drastically rethink the way they wage statewide campaigns. For starters, running for political office--already a multimillion-dollar enterprise--has become a whole lot more expensive, giving a leg up to independently wealthy candidates like Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls Al Checchi and Jane Harman.

“The necessity to communicate with voters in your own party as well as the minor parties and decline-to-state voters makes the cost of campaigning a lot heavier,” said Bill Carrick, a Harman strategist.

Checchi’s extensive TV advertisements don’t even mention that he is a Democrat, an obvious effort to broaden his appeal.

The second most precious campaign resource--a candidate’s time--is also subject to the new circumstances. Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, for instance, devoted a second day to last week’s gubernatorial announcement swing, adding stops in Monterey, Merced and Santa Barbara.

The blanket primary was “clearly one of the factors that played into our decision,” said Davis campaign director Garry South. “The Central Coast and Central Valley are traditionally not big producers of votes in a closed Democratic primary.”

Even candidates like Republican Atty. Gen. Lungren and Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, who appear well fixed because they face no primary opposition, have to worry about the impact of the new system--in part because they face no primary opposition.

That lack of competition might tempt some voters to shop around. And once a voter strays “in almost every case we know of, they stay with that candidate in the general election,” said Olson, who teaches political science at the University of Washington.

Thus, Lungren and Boxer have to campaign considerably harder than they would under a closed primary system.

“The open primary gives us not only the need to ensure that Republican voters know Dan Lungren is the Republican candidate,” strategist Puglia said, “it requires us to reach across to independent voters as well as moderate Democrats who might have voted Republican in the past.”

Given that expanded universe of eligible voters, advocates of the new primary system touted higher turnout as one of many virtues. Based on the experience in Washington state, that may prove true.

For years, the state has routinely ranked in the top third or so in primary turnout, though elections czar McIntosh said the number fluctuates, as it does elsewhere, for reasons beyond the balloting system.

“If the economy’s bad or there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on, turnout is high,” McIntosh said. “If the economy’s good, the issues are boring and the candidates aren’t interesting, the turnout is low.”

But the blanket primary may do less than promised to boost centrists at the expense of more ideological candidates. In 1992, for instance, Washington voters passed over a more moderate Democrat to nominate the avowedly liberal Mike Lowry, who went on to become governor.

In the 1996 governor’s race, the ardently right-wing Ellen Craswell defeated a slew of more centrist Republicans before losing the general election to Democrat Gary Locke.

If anything, some experts argue, the blanket primary increases the likelihood that the most extreme (or ideologically pure) candidate will prevail.

“Ideologues have a better chance of getting more votes as a bloc,” explained Bob Gogerty, a Democratic consultant with more than 30 years’ experience in Washington politics. “Everyone else is fighting for the rest of the Vote.”

Or as Don McDonough, ah, a Seattle poll-taker, put it, “The liberals find their candidate, the conservatives find their candidate and the moderates are left with the scraps.”

While crossover voting--Democrats voting for Republicans and vice versa--occurs frequently, history has not shown such interparty dalliances to be decisive.

“Rather than altering primary election outcomes, the crossover voters reinforce outcomes that otherwise would have occurred, but by larger margins,” Olson said in testifying last year on behalf of California’s blanket primary. A federal judge upheld the constitutionality of the new system, rejecting the arguments of the two major political parties, which felt the change diluted their influence over the primary process.

As for mischief-making -- the notion of, say, Democrats voting for the weakest Republican in the primary to enhance Democratic prospects in the fall--the evidence is strictly folkloric.

“People hold their franchise in very high regard,” said Gogerty. “A few people may be conspiratorial. But most people take voting very seriously and aren’t about to go playing games with it.”

Regardless of whether the blanket primary produces all the good that its fans say it will--or all the horrors that opponents fear--the changeover has already made one group of citizens exceedingly happy: political consultants.

“Nothing could be better for my industry than the new primary system, term limits and no campaign-finance caps,” said Alex Evans, a Bay Area pollster. “It means a constant stream of new candidates, primary battles and more opportunity to do business.”

Primary Distinctions

Californians will be voting June 2 in a “blanket” primary--the state’s first ever--not an “open primary” as commonly described. There are important differences.

Blanket primary: Any registered voter can vote for any candidate of any party. All candidates appear on a single ballot. The top vote-getters from each party advance to the general election Nov. 3.

Open primary: Under this system used in many states, a voter can show up at the polls and request a ballot for a particular party, regardless of his or her registration, but cannot cross back and forth to vote for candidates of different parties.

Closed primary (California’s old system): A voter can choose only among candidates of the party in which the voter is registered. Those who decline to state a party preference are ineligible to vote in partisan races such as those for governor, Congress and the Legislature.