Registered As No Party Preference? You Need To Request Presidential Primary Ballot

Speaker 1: 00:00 You've been hearing about the presidential election for some time now, but it is finally nearing that time when you will be able to weigh in on who you think our next president should be. This week the registrar of voters is sending out postcards to remind voters that if they haven't already, they'll need to pick a political party to vote in March. Presidential primary. Michael WGU is the San Diego County registrar and joins us now. Michael, welcome. Thanks for having Megan. As of October 1st 81% of Californians were registered to vote, which secretary of state, Alex Padilla said was the highest rates since 1952 are we seeing a similar trend here in San Diego County? Speaker 2: 00:38 We are, uh, right now we are sitting at 1.8 million registered voters. We keep on fluctuating be low and above 1.8 million due to list maintenance activities. But uh, if you think about the last presidential election in 2016, we've added over 150,000 registered voters to the voter registration roles. Um, so we're seeing a high number of individuals registering to vote and that's as a result of various state policies that are out there that have come to fruition, that have been acted upon. And now we're seeing a higher number. So we're sitting at about the same amount as the secretary of state has has mentioned, uh, around 78 to 80% of eligible register voters are registered to vote. Speaker 1: 01:14 And are you noticing any trends locally in terms of registration by party? Speaker 2: 01:18 Well, what it comes down to is, is where we're sitting at right now is, is that 37% of the electorate that are registered to vote are considered themselves a Democrat. There's 27% that considers themselves a Republican. And then you've got a pretty big population, a growing population of nonpartisan voters or independent voters. And that's sitting in about 30%. So about 550,000 and individuals of the 1.8 million registered voters are considered themselves independent and nonpartisan voters. Uh, that population of voters will have an impact in terms of not only the administration of the election, but also how campaigns go out and, and, and seek those votes. Speaker 1: 01:53 And, and that growing group have no party preference. Voters must indicate which ballot they want for the primary in March, right? Speaker 2: 02:00 Correct. Is, is that every presidential election? It's really a political party's preference. Primary. And really what that comes down to is as the political parties gets to decide who gets to vote on their presidential candidates and who doesn't, particularly the nonpartisan voters. And so for this upcoming election, it's kind of a repeat of the 2016 presidential election where there are three political parties that is the democratic party, the American independent party, as well as the libertarian party that are opening up their presidential slate of presidential candidates to nonpartisan voters. And then you have three political parties that are closing. There are presidential candidates to non-partisan voters and that includes the Republican party as well as the green party and then the peace and freedom party. Speaker 1: 02:39 So how does that work? I mean, what if those non party preference voters want to vote in the Republican primary? Speaker 2: 02:44 Well, they all have to register to vote. If you are a nonpartisan voter and you want to vote on a slate of presidential candidates that are closing off their presidential candidates, that includes the president, a Republican party, the green party, and the peace and freedom you have to reregister develop for that political party a to be able to vote for their candidates. Now, if you are a nonpartisan voter and you want to cross over to vote on the democratic party ticket or the American independent or the libertarian that you have the ability to do so, there'll be a crossover ballot, uh, for you. If you're a nonpartisan voter and you do not have to reregister develop. Speaker 1: 03:16 So, so then what are you asking voters to do specifically once they receive this postcard that's being sent out this week? Speaker 2: 03:22 Well, it's a really important, yeah, I anticipate that this mailer is going to go out the latter part of this weekend and also into next week as well. So what voters should know is once you receive that, what we're asking them to do is learn about the presidential primary election. It's one of the most complex elections, uh, not only for elections officials like myself and administrators like myself, but also for voters because normally an individual just receives a ballot that has their specific contest that they're eligible to vote on here in this upcoming election because it is a presidential primary election and the political parties gets to choose who gets to vote on their presidential candidates and who doesn't. We want you to know about and learned the rules of the presidential primary. We want to have you verify your respective information. What will be on this mailer will be your mailing address, your residence address as well as your political party preference. Make sure you understand what those are, make sure it's accurate and if it's different than what you believe you are in particularly that political party a, then you want to reregister vote for the political party that you escalate the presidential candidates that you want to vote on resident's address, a mailing address. Make sure you verify that as well because if it's different reregistered about Speaker 1: 04:28 and, and your re-registering is something that you've got to do online or do you just send this postcard back? Speaker 2: 04:33 There is so many different ways@thispointtoregistertovoteandyoucandososimplybygoingtosdvote.com. There's a link there. There's five different screens that you have to go through to fill out, to register to vote. Um, you don't fill out the this card. Really the only individuals that are, are going to get a card are going to be the non pars and permanent mail ballot voters who have to make their selection before we send them a, their respective mal ballot. Uh, there is another piece to that mailer though, is which is what we're encouraging voters to do is, is to sign up to receive their sample Bello electronically as well. The last time we sent out a mailer like that, we had 80,000 individual signup. We're seeing a lot more people wanting to, to receive their material, extra material electronically and not their ballot of course, but their, the, their, uh, election material, um, via email. And so we're offering that and hopefully a number of individuals sign up to receive. It's a certainly a quicker way to receive election material about the respective candidates and measures that will be on the ballot, but also a more earth-friendly way of, of getting their election material then and then in the mail with all of the other campaign mailings that will, they'll receive. Speaker 1: 05:37 And I'd like to switch gears a bit and talk about the registrar of voters, satellite offices. What was your reason for asking the County board of supervisors to fund these four offices at a cost of $900,000? Speaker 2: 05:49 Well, the reason why is because of what we saw during the 2018 election. And then also Senate bill 72 which expands conditional voter registration too, not just at the respect of a local election officials office, but it's now expanded to all polling locations on election day. My concern is is that w what we saw during the 2018 election is, is a very long line at the registrar voters office and that's something that we want to avoid, are at least cushion or minimize that would occur at the polling location level. So the satellite location is to leave V8 some of that and to really redirect those voters to the satellite locations. Actually not, they're not even voters at that point. They're unregistered voters that want to vote on election day. What we're trying to do is have those individuals redirect them to the satellite location, register and vote there. Speaker 1: 06:34 And the board of supervisors eventually approved funding for the satellite offices. But the first vote failed and the board's chair had to figure out another way to get the funding approved. Were you surprised that there was controversy over funding these offices? Speaker 2: 06:48 Well ultimately it's the progress of the board and a really, there were differences associated with the uh, their stance on the satellite locations, particularly the funding portion of it. One of the things though as it did pass. And I'm happy that it did pass cause it allows another option, another tool for elections and administrators like myself to really address concerns that, uh, we saw during the 2018 election. And of course we're going into a much higher volume election with the presidential race that is on there. Uh, so I'm happy to have seen that. Yeah. Speaker 1: 07:15 I have been speaking to San Diego County registrar of voters, Michael WGU. Michael, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.