Crossover Votes Count for Nothing

Now that the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary are over, candidates and pundits have turned their attention to the next big contests. Nothing looms as large as March 7, when a number of large states, including California, hold their primaries. One might think that John McCain and Bill Bradley would do especially well in California, given the state’s open primary law and the support the two candidates have received so far from independent voters. Think again.

In New Hampshire, independent voters played a pivotal role by placing their votes for whatever candidate they liked best, whatever the party. That state’s election law does not require voters to decide until they arrived at the polling place whether to vote in the Democratic or Republican or whatever primary. Even more important, it makes each of these votes count by adding it to the final tally that decides how many delegates will support the candidates at the parties’ national conventions.

Voters in California have clearly stated--twice--that they want the same kind of choice. Yet the major parties have thwarted that will. Under a state law passed last year, votes cast by non-Republicans in the Republican primary and by non-Democrats in the Democratic primary won’t count toward choosing delegates at either parties’ presidential nominating convention. The results will be nothing more than a beauty contest.

How is it possible for the state government to defy California voters’ will? It’s complicated. Voters in 1996 passed Proposition 198, which made California an open primary state. The national organizations of both the Democratic and Republican parties objected, however, saying they would not seat delegates for presidential primaries who were not chosen by members of their own party.

Responding to this concern, the Legislature placed Proposition 3 on the ballot in 1998, which would have disallowed crossover-voting in presidential primaries. Voters overwhelmingly rejected Proposition 3.

Undaunted, the Legislature last year passed a law signed by Gov. Gray Davis requiring that primary ballots be coded by party affiliation. The upshot is that when Secretary of State Bill Jones reports primary election results, he will report two sets of figures, one representing the total votes for each candidate and another representing the total votes for each candidate by those registered in that candidate’s political party. The national Democratic and Republican parties will ignore the former and use the latter for delegate selection for their national conventions.

Under this scenario, it is conceivable that McCain could be the Republican obtaining the greatest overall number of votes but that George W. Bush could be declared the winner of the GOP primary. The same applies to Bradley and Al Gore on the Democratic side. Few California voters understand that if they vote across party lines in the presidential primary, their vote will be meaningless.

The Legislature’s decision to defer to the parties is indefensible. After failing to make their case twice at the ballot box, the major parties convinced the Legislature to bypass the will of the people.

Voters, by passing Proposition 198 and rejecting Proposition 3, indicated their clear preference for an open primary, which many political scientists believe promotes more moderate political candidates. The law passed by the Legislature undermines the voters’ intent. It could even be argued that the Legislature has violated the California Constitution, which provides that initiatives cannot be amended by the Legislature but only by another vote of the people.

So far, no lawsuit has been filed challenging the state law, which means the major parties have had their way. Still, they are not satisfied. They are continuing their attack against Proposition 198 in federal court, where they have lost initial battles but now have a hearing in April in the U.S. Supreme Court.

What is at stake is whether the primaries belong to the parties or to the people. One thing is certain: The parties had a decent chance to avoid this whole mess had they bothered to make their case to the California electorate for the defeat of the open primary. Next time, the parties should trust the people.