its time to end primary elections

[Retrograde]

17. Read the voters' guide beforehand

Last edited Sun Aug 6, 2023, 08:25 PM - Edit history (1)

to pick your preferred candidate, then look at your sample ballot - which should have arrived about 5 weeks before the election (if not, the info is on line) - and locate your choice. If you want, mark your sample ballot so when your actual ballot arrives you can easily find the candidate you want to vote for.

Of course, it helps that California sends sample ballots to all registered voters, and has no-excuse mail-in voting for all registered voters, and mails ballots to all registered users. When Kamala Harris was running in the primary for the Senate, she was in the middle of a field of more-than-I-have-fingers-and-toes and while it took a while, voters had no problem finding her.

To make things even more unbiased (or complicated, if you will), the listing of candidates differs in each State Assembly district, so no one candidate will have the advantage of being first. It's done in the interests of fairness - the candidate on the first line is more likely to get votes from less informed voters, so the state mixes up the order so no one candidate has a state-wide advantage.

All that's for the primary. In general elections there are only 2 names for each office, except for president, where there can be as many as 6 (one for each party in the state). Of course, we make up for that by putting as many elections as possible on the same ballot, which is why they're usually 5+ pages.