Figure 8 Support For The Affordable Care Act Is Concentrated In Highly Democratic Areas
NOTES: Question wording is A health reform bill was signed into law in 2010, known commonly as the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. Given what you know about the health reform law, do you have a generally favorable or unfavorable opinion of it? Shading represents the share of Californians who say they have a favorable opinion. Estimates come from a multilevel regression and poststratification model as described in Technical Appendix A. Full model results can be found in Technical Appendix B.
Immigration is another topic with modest but not high geographic disagreement. Under the Trump administration, immigration has become a key political issue and a flash point between California and the federal government. Californians broadly support a fairly tolerant attitude toward immigrants: 72 percent believe immigrants are a benefit to the state, and 60 percent support the state taking separate action to protect undocumented immigrants. In almost every one of our places, a majority considers immigrants a benefit . Support for a separate state immigration policy shows slightly more variation, falling below 50 percent in 14, mostly rural, places and rising above 70 percent in very liberal places like San Francisco and central LA . Yet outside these places, views are similar throughout the rest of the state.
Military And Overseas Voters
If you are a member of the military or a US citizen living outside the United States and meet all the voter eligibility requirements above you can register to vote. This includes if you are a US citizen born abroad who is eligible to vote and has not registered to vote in any other state.
The fastest and simplest way to register is through the Online Registration Form.
You can also visit the Federal Voting Assistance Program website to complete the FVAP assistance form. The signed form may be:
- Faxed to our office at 335-7843,
- Emailed to , or
-
- P.O. Box 271
The forms to register and vote by mail are also available through the military installations Voting Assistance Officer or any US Embassy or Consulate.
Voting For Candidates And Measures
What if I’ve voted by mail for a candidate who has since withdrawn from the race?
A candidate’s public withdrawal from an election, once his or her name is on the ballot, makes no difference in terms of how votes for that person are counted. If Vote by Mail ballots are cast for such a candidate, they will still be counted like all other votes.
What are the rules for write-in candidates?
Under California’s vote-enacted Top Two Open Primary Act, the rules for write-in candidates have changed. See this page from the Secretary of State for more details. In order to be eligible to receive write-in votes and have them actually count, a candidate must file a written statement declaring him or herself to be an official write-in candidate for a particular election.
Write-in votes cast for someone who has not filed as an official write-in candidate will not be counted. If a voter misspells the name of candidate, or omits part of the candidate’s name or the office for which the candidate is running, the vote may still count depending upon a number of factors.
What is the percentage of the vote required to pass local and state measures?
Do I have to vote on everything on the ballot or can I skip some contests?
Voting is not a test. You do not have to vote on every contest on the ballot in order for your ballot to be considered valid and counted. Many voters routinely skip contests when they are uncertain of how to vote.
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What Do Party Preferences Mean When Listed With Candidates’ Names On The Ballot What Are The Qualified Political Parties And Abbreviations Of Those Party Names
The term “party preference” is now used in place of the term “party affiliation.” A candidate must indicate his or her preference or lack of preference for a qualified political party. If the candidate has a qualified political party preference, that qualified political party will be indicated by the candidate’s name on the ballot. If a candidate does not have a party preference, “Party Preference: None” will be indicated by the candidate’s name on the ballot.
Similarly, voters who were previously known as “decline-to-state” voters are now known as having “no party preference” or known as “NPP” voters.
Abbreviations for the qualified political parties are:
- DEM = Democratic Party
- LIB = Libertarian Party
- PF = Peace & Freedom Party
Can No Party Preference Vote In California Primary
No voter may vote in the primary election of any political party other than the party he or she has disclosed a preference for upon registering to vote. Under the California constitution, political parties are not entitled to formally nominate candidates for voter-nominated offices at the primary election.
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How The Primary Works
California uses a system, in which all candidates appear on the same ballot. The top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, move on to the general election. In states that do not use a top-two system, all parties are usually able to put forward a candidate for the general election if they choose to.
Unlike the top-two format used in some states , a general election between the top two candidates in California occurs regardless of whether the top candidate received 50 percent of the vote in the first round of elections.
As of 2019, California was one of three states to use a top-two primary system. Washington used the system for congressional and state-level elections, and Nebraska utilized a top-two system for its nonpartisan state legislature.
Counties Are Doing Things A Little Differently This Time
If you live in one of the counties highlighted below, voting might look a little different this year.
In 2016, California passed the Voter Choice Act, a law aimed at modernizing the states election system, such that:
- Every registered voter gets a ballot in the mail
- Voters are no longer required to go to a specific polling place, but can vote at any number of voting centers or drop-off points
- Voters can cast their ballots in person beginning 11 days before, and up to and including, Election Day
In 2018, five counties rolled out the new system. This year, 10 more will join their ranks. Thats fifteen counties in all containing 49% of the state population.
This is key for no party preference voters living in these counties who may not get the ballot they want in the mail. See the previous section for details.
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Republicans Narrow Voter Registration Gap In Swing States
There are still more people registered as Democrats than Republicans in the battleground states of Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, but Republicans have been gaining ground.
There are multiple forces at play: Republicans are making strides with registering voters, the two-party system is losing its appeal especially with young people and Democrats are being purged from the rolls as they either move out of those states or arent showing up at the polls.
The people who have been removed from the file since are more Democrats than Republicans, said Tom Bonier, CEO of TargetSmart, a nonprofit politics data firm. Overwhelmingly, those people didnt vote in 2016. What that tells you is these are people who had already either moved from the state or already died prior to November 2016, and they just hadnt been removed at that point.
The latest national CBS News Battleground Tracker poll shows Joe Biden with a 10-point lead among likely voters, but that lead narrows to within the margin of error in several key states, meaning the race could come down to who shows up at the polls on or before Election Day.
How Are Presidential Primary Elections Conducted In California
Qualified political parties in California may hold presidential primaries in one of two ways:
- Closed presidential primary – the party only allows voters indicating a preference for that party to vote for its presidential nominee.
- Modified-closed presidential primary – in addition to allowing voters indicating a preference for that party to vote for its presidential nominee, the party also allows voters who did not indicate a party preference to vote for its presidential nominee.
If a qualified political party chooses to hold a modified-closed presidential primary, the party must notify the California Secretary of State no later than the 135th day before Election Day.
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Turnout Patterns Across States Show Large Increases And Notable Shifts
National turnout shifts between 2016 and 2020 were broadly evident across individual states. Turnout rose in 44 states as well as Washington, D.C. .
Among the states with double-digit turnout gains was the swing state of Arizona, where turnout rose from 60% to 72%. New Jersey increased turnout from 61% to 78%, giving it the highest 2020 turnout rate of all states. Similarly, all but nine states showed turnout gains for their 18- to 29-year-old populations
Most notable are turnout shifts among white non-college and white college graduate populations. Only six states registered 2016-to-2020 turnout drops for non-college white voters, whereas 15 states showed such drops for white college graduates. In all but 11 states, turnout gains were greater for non-college white voters than for college-educated white voters. And particularly relevant for the 2020 election, both Michigan and Wisconsin registered turnout gains for non-college white voters and declines for college-educated white voters.
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Issues For Which Location Plays Some Role
Though taxes and concern about the budget show relatively little geographic variation, one topic that touches on similar issues of government size and scope-opinions of Obamacareshows more . Support is strongest-between 60 and 70 percent-in the Bay Area and central and coastal LA, and weakest-less than 40 percent-in the rural far north and east of the state. Yet most of our places remain lukewarm toward the law, with support between about 40 and 60 percent. This includes most of the Central Valley and most of the coast outside of central and coastal LA and the Bay Area.3
In Her New Book Congress And Us Veterans: From The Gi Bill To The Va Crisis Stevens Assistant Professor Lindsey Cormack Evaluates How The Parties Legislate And Communicate Veterans Policies
More than 18 million veterans live in the United States today, according to the latest census, and with worldwide presence and ongoing wars, the military enlists 1.2 million active and 800,000 reserve military personnel across the branches. As a nation, we look up to those who serve. Its a uniting opinion, and 95% of Americans believe its the duty of government to support veterans when they return to the homefront.
The role of devising policies that benefit former soldiers now falls to Congress, and so the creation and communication of veterans policies, like most things in Washington, is subject to the realities of party politics. Republicans are viewed as the party of veterans, public opinion and voting data says so. But in her new book, Stevens Assistant Professor Lindsey Cormack questions how that came to be, as her research shows that congressional Democrats, more often than not, are the ones working to enhance veteran benefits.
On a continuum of legislative behavior, we have one end populated by the dedicated workhorses who draft legislation, hammer out compromises, and get into the weeds of complicated policy questions, Cormack writes in her book. On the other end, there are show ponies that care more about pumping out media sound bites or trying to get the next viral video on YouTube.
Moreover, there is a difference between Republican members of Congress expressing support for veterans benefits and actively legislating to accomplish it.
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What Should I Do If I Changed My Name
If you have legally changed your name, you must re-register to vote so that your voter record reflects your current name. The Secretary of State recommends that before you update your voter record with your current name, you first update your California driver license or identification card with DMV.
If you are re-registering online and you have not updated your DMV record with your new name, select “decline” on the application when asked to use your DMV signature to register to vote. If you do not decline use of your DMV signature, your application will be rejected by your county elections official because your DMV signature for your prior name will not match your voter signature with your new name. After you decline to use your DMV signature, continue filling in your information. Print, sign, and mail the paper application to your county elections office.
Lots Of Consistency Elsewhere
In the rest of the country, there was much more consistency between party registration totals and the 2016 election outcome, with only three non-Southern states voting against the grain. On election eve in Pennsylvania, there were 915,081 more registered Democrats than Republicans Trump carried the state by 44,292 votes. In West Virginia, there were 175,867 more registered Democrats Trump won by 300,577 votes. And in New Hampshire, there were 24,232 more registered Republicans than Democrats in the fall of 2016, but Hillary Clinton took the state by 2,736 votes. Thats it. The other 22 party registration states outside the South were carried in the presidential balloting by the party with more registered voters than the other.
And in many of these in sync states, the registration advantage in recent years has grown more Republican or Democratic as the case may be, augmented by a healthy increase in independents.
The registration trend line in California is a microcosm of sorts of party registration in the nation as whole. Democrats are running ahead and the ranks of the independents are growing. Yet registered voters in both parties appear to be widely engaged. That was the case in 2016, and likely will be again in 2018, with Trump flogging issues to rouse his base. In short, this is a highly partisan era when party registration totals, and the trends that go with them, are well worth watching.
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California Locations By Voter Registration
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The following is a list of California locations by voter registration.
In October 2020, California had 22,047,448 registered voters, comprising 87.87% of its total eligible voters. Of those registered voters, 10,170,317 were registered Democrats, 5,334,323 were Republicans and, 5,283,853 were No Party Preference .
The county with the highest percentage of registered Republicans was Modoc County, with registered Republicans comprising half of the registered voters. The ten counties with the highest percentage of registered Republicans are relatively small, with an average population of 91,776, and all but one are landlocked.
Similarly, the counties with the ten lowest percentages of registered voters are all relatively small and landlocked, with the exception of Monterey County. Kings County had the lowest percentage of registered voters, with just 34.7 percent of its population registered to vote. The two smallest counties in California by population also had the highest percentage of registered voters Sierra County had the highest percentage, with 73.1 percent of its population registered to vote.
Is Voter Registration Information Confidential
The voter registration rolls are not available to the general public. However, California law allows certain voter information to be released to a member of the California Legislature or U.S. Congress, to any candidate, to any committee for or against a proposed ballot measure, and to any person for election, scholarly, journalistic, or political purpose, or for governmental purposes. Even in these cases, a few items remain confidential and are never provided to any requestor: your social security number, your driver license number, and your signature.
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Wide Divides In Partisanship Persist By Race And Ethnicity
Some of the largest differences in partisanship continue to be seen across racial and ethnic groups.
The GOP continues to maintain an advantage in leaned party identification among white voters . By contrast, sizable majorities of black, Hispanic and Asian American voters identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. Among black voters, 83% identify or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with just 10% who say they are Republican or lean toward the GOP.
The Democratic Party also holds a clear advantage over the GOP in leaned party identification among Hispanic voters , though the margin is not as large as among black voters.
Among English-speaking Asian American voters, 72% identify or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with just 17% who identify with or lean toward the GOP.
The balance of partisanship among white, black and Hispanic voters has been generally stable over the past decade. However, English-speaking Asian American voters have shifted toward the Democratic Party.
