Share this far and wide. Californians' have until May 23 to fix their voter registration!!!

[drm604]

http://usuncut.com/politics/california-primary-independents/

Californians by the hundreds of thousands have registered with the American Independent Party (AIP), making it the third largest party in the state. However, rather than being a standard “independent” status for voter registration purposes, the AIP is a fringe right-wing party that wants to ban abortion and same-sex marriage, seeking to free the nation from “the lawless oppression of Liberal rule” according to its website.

Apparently “a majority of (AIP) members have registered with the party in error,” as a survey of registered members found that about 73% of members polled did not realize they had joined the party.
...
This has ominous repercussions for confused would-be independent voters. The Democratic primary in California allows unaffiliated voters to participate, but membership in the AIP would exclude them from this process according to the Democratic Party’s primary rules in the state. Currently, only registered Democrats and those with “no party preference” marked are allowed to vote in the Democratic primary.

California voters have until May 23 to change their registration. You can check your registration here: http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/registration-status/

I am not advocating that anyone registers Independent, just putting out a warning for any who may have tried to and made this mistake.

[PatrickforO]

1. Wow. ANYTHING to screw voters who might go Democratic.

Sick.

[stopbush]

2. ??

CA has a partially open primary. You are only allowed to vote in the primary of the party in which you're registered. Ds can't vote in the R primary and vice versa.

In CA, you can register as "not affiliated" with any party. If you are an NA you can vote in the D or R or AIP primary.

If you registered as a member of the American Independent Party, you can vote only in their primary. So basically, a bunch of Californians who wanted to make a statement that they weren't an R or a D didn't bother doing basic research and signed up as a member of the RW AIP, believing they were registering as not affiliated independents. Whose fault is that? It's their own fault.

[OxQQme]

3. but shouldn't those who registered AIP

be given a chance to re-register once they've discovered their error?

Just throw them under the bus because they were 'faulty'?

[Retrograde]

8. They have until May 23 to re-register

they can even do it on-line if they don't want to stop by a convenient post office or other place that usually has voter application forms, or go down to the county registrar, or contact a local Democratic party activist.

[Peace Patriot]

4. It's called "NO PARTY PREFERENCE" or NPP. Don't let this Clinton supporter confuse you.

stopbush's language is very imprecise (the commenter above with "H" and the arrow pointing to the right).

In California, you CANNOT register as "not affiliated." You CANNOT register as "independent." You must register and "NO PARTY PREFERENCE" (NPP) or as Democratic, to vote for Bernie Sanders (or Clinton).

When you register, do not mark any box that has the word "independent" next to it. California does not use that word to describe an independent voter. The ONLY way to establish that you are an "independent" voter is to register as "NO PARTY PREFERENCE" (NPP). If you are registered NPP, you can request a Democratic Party Primary ballot.

If you are an NPP voter, I welcome you to the Democratic Party Primary, and I totally understand if you made a mistake, because the rules are, indeed, confusing as presented on the CA Secretary of State's web site in small print with poor formatting. And those rules do NOT appear in the CA Voters Information pamphlet that was mailed out. The pamphlet refers you to the web site, to try to figure all this out.

Also, if you don't like being insulted by Clinton supporters for making the mistake of registering as American Independence Party--a mistake made by some 500,000 California voters--and if you get the feeling that they have contempt for you and your vote, then...

VOTE FOR BERNIE SANDERS!

[PatrickforO]

5. OK, so if I am a mortgage lender and decide to loan money to people I know can't pay it back.

I give these people the 'hard sell' because I know they aren't very educated or aware of things, and I 'hit' them because it is easy. The smarter ones protest, but I overcome their objections and sell them the loan anyway so I can bundle it and make large profits.

Now, whose fault is that?

By your logic, it is the person who was sold the bill of goods by the predatory capitalist. Oh, you can hear the pundits now, back in 2008 and 2009 - "Oh, well too many Americans were using their homes as ATMs..."

But what about the predatory lenders? What fault do they share?
And what about those who are supposed to regulate these practices and protect consumers?
And what about the members of Congress who cut, cut, cut, cut budgets because their ideology calls for deregulation, privatization and gutting social programs?

See, to me, you are seriously mistake with your flippant, "Whose fault is that?"

Because who decided to make the rules so complicated that you have to go into a website and use college level research skills to find the truth? Who decided to call this misbegotten party the American Independent Party, and why? Who at the election office decided NOT to publicize the competing parties with a qualifier, like 'Not independent - to vote independent register as NPP?'

See I don't think the people who registered AIP are at fault. I think they are getting screwed. Just like this capitalist shit hole we live in screws us all daily by nickel and diming us. Why do you think so many Americans are angry enough to vote for Sanders or Trump? Because we are FUCKING TIRED of the establishment pissing down our backs and telling us it is raining. We are FUCKING TIRED of voting for someone who pivots hard right the minute they are elected. We are FUCKING tired of OUR tax dollars that WE pay in being used for stuff that doesn't help us in the least like a forever war, a misbegotten war on drugs that we lost the minute we declared, private prisons and a giant, erect, throbbing national security domestic spying apparatus! We are tired of corporations getting to skate by hiding money overseas while our highways and roads get more potholes, and our water treatment going downhill. We are tired of corporations coming in and fracking so our fucking water lights on fire when it's coming out of the faucet. We are tired of shitbags like Shkreli who bump the price of a drug to stratospheric levels to boost profits while allowing people to die.

So, notbush, don't give me that flippant crap about how if half a million Californians register for some right wing bullshit party and so will not be allowed to vote in the Dem primary, then it is THEIR FAULT.

BECAUSE IT ISN'T. AND YOU KNOW IT ISN'T.

[stopbush]

6. Making excuses for the Sanders voter has reached new levels

of ridiculousness.

My son figured it out 4 years ago when he registered NPP, without any help from his parents. It's no mystery, let alone a nefarious plot.

[Retrograde]

7. Has Hillary been time-traveling again?

The American Independent Party goes back to George Wallace's heyday in the late 1960s, long before I was eligible to vote. They don't exactly keep their viewpoints a secret, and they're not part of a giant conspiracy to disenfranchise voters who don't pay attention. (And they're happy to let Non-Partisan voters - that's what people not affiliated with a party are called in California - vote in their upcoming primary. Unlike the Republicans, who are keeping their presidential party closed this year).

[SCantiGOP]

9. You beat me to it

AIP was the party that was supposed to carry on George Wallace's message.
Good for them, they now have the GOP nominee to do that for them.