Fact check: Did California election officials give independent voters inconsistent and incorrect information about voting by mail?
Bernie Sanders has a substantial lead over Hillary Clinton in California’s June 7 primary among voters who identify as “independent,” according to polling data from Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. "Our poll has him crushing her among independents, but the question is how many of them show up, and how many of them who would like to vote for Bernie will get tripped up by the system," Hoover Institution research fellow Bill Whalen told The Mercury News.[1]
California voters who decide not to declare membership in a political party when registering to vote appear on voter rolls as “No Party Preference” (NPP).[2] According to the most recently published statistics from the California Secretary of State’s Office, 4,117,885 Californians—or 23.9 percent of the state’s voters—are registered as NPP.[3] Any of those voters who want to vote for a Democratic presidential primary candidate would have to request a “crossover ballot.” Otherwise, the ballot they receive would not list any presidential candidates.[2]
William Simpich, an Oakland attorney and Bernie Sanders supporter, claims election officials have provided inadequate and, in some cases, incorrect information about requesting crossover ballots to NPP voters who receive their ballots through the mail.
“It’s inconsistent,” Simpich told The Sacramento Bee. “Sometimes the information is there, sometimes it’s not. And sometimes the instructions are bad.”[4]
On June 1, U.S. District Judge William Alsup rejected a request from Simpich for an emergency injunction to change how election officials present information about crossover ballots. The injunction would have also extended the deadline for NPP voters to request a crossover ballot by mail beyond the previously set date of May 31.[5][6]
Judge Alsup ruled that the particular examples contained in Simpich’s court filing did not constitute a violation of federal laws regarding voting. The judge also ruled that the May 20 request for an injunction had not been filed in a timely manner.
But is Simpich correct that election officials have provided NPP voters who vote by mail with inconsistent and incorrect information?
Ballotpedia examined news accounts of incorrect information provided to NPP voters and interviewed a voting expert in California, and we conclude that Simpich is correct.
Background: No Party Preference, voting by mail, and crossover ballots
No Party Preference has become an increasingly popular option during the past 12 years for Californians registering to vote.[7] Although the state has an open primary system—meaning that NPP voters can cast a ballot for almost any candidate—in 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that political parties could place restrictions on who is allowed to vote for party nominees in primaries. In California, the only restrictions political parties have imposed is on who can vote for their presidential nominees.[2]
The Republican Party restricts voting for its presidential primary candidates to registered members of the party, as do the Green and Peace & Freedom parties. NPP voters wanting to vote for a Democratic presidential primary candidate, or a candidate from the American Independent and Libertarian parties, must request a crossover ballot. If an NPP voter doesn’t request a crossover ballot, the ballot they receive (either through the mail as an absentee voter or at a polling place) will not list any presidential primary candidate.[2]
Along with the growth in the number of voters registered as NPP, there has been a growth in the number of voters registering as Permanent Absentee Voters (PAVs). PAVs automatically receive a vote-by-mail ballot for each election. Two-thirds of the 850,000 Californians who registered to vote between January 1 and March 31, 2016, elected to become PAVs.[7][8]
“The Secretary of State’s Office doesn’t publish the number of No Party Preference voters who are also absentee voters, but Political Data Inc., a major nonpartisan data mining firm in Los Angeles, has compiled the numbers,” Kim Alexander, president of nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, told Ballotpedia.[9] “There are 2.17 million of those voters, and that’s three times the number there were in 2008, the last time there was a contested presidential primary in California.”
Voting instructions and confusion
California state law requires that, prior to the start of early voting on May 9, county registrars notify NPP absentee voters by mail of their right to a crossover ballot. NPP voters who want a crossover ballot are supposed to fill in a blank on the notification form indicating on the notification card which crossover ballot they want—Democratic, American Independent, or Libertarian—and return the postcard to the county registrar’s office. Voters who don’t return a properly filled-out notification form receive a ballot with no presidential primary candidates listed.[2]
The amount of information provided to NPP voters who vote by mail and how that information is presented vary from county to county, according to Kim Alexander.
“The mailed notifications were all different, and some had dates by which they had to be returned in order to get a ballot that were different from the actual deadline in state law, which is seven days before the primary or May 31 this year. Not all the forms made it clear that it was just a request by the registrar’s office that the card be returned by that date, or made clear that date was not the actual deadline,” Alexander said in a telephone interview. “Some voters, apparently, took the earlier date as the deadline and thought it was too late to get a crossover ballot.”[9]
“I’m a No Party Preference Voter, and in my county, Sacramento, the notification I was sent gave April 15 as the date by which it had to be returned in order to get a crossover ballot,” Alexander added.
According to figures published by Political Data Inc., Sacramento County has 89,392 NPP voters registered as absentee voters. As of May 30, only 16 percent of those voters had requested a crossover ballot.[10] That is in keeping with the overall statewide total, according to the firm’s research. As of May 28, only 15 percent of California’s NPP voters who vote by mail had requested a crossover ballot.[1]
Political Data Inc. has also conducted surveys of NPP voters who vote by mail, and according to Paul Mitchell, the firm’s vice president, “the vast majority” of NPP absentee voters “who intend to vote in the Democratic primary are still not clued into how the process works.”[7]
"The data is saying that a significant portion of nonpartisan voters want to participate in the presidential primary, but the paperwork is getting in the way of that," Mitchell told The Mercury News.[1]
Counties listed different deadlines
In April, The Press-Democrat reported that the Sonoma County Registrar of Voters had sent out postcards giving April 15 as the deadline for NPP absentee voters to request a crossover ballot instead of the actual deadline of May 31. The registrar’s office told the newspaper that the earlier date was a mistake.[11]
Not all county registrars’ offices that sent out notifications with a deadline other than May 31 characterized those dates as mistakes.
In Riverside County, the registrar of voters sent out notifications listing April 22 as the deadline for requesting crossover ballots. A representative from the registrar’s office told the investigative journalism website Who.What.Why. that the date was a “soft deadline” rather than a mistake.[12] The early date was “meant to ‘avoid a bottleneck’ at the end of the application period,” according to the representative. The representative pointed out that the date of the actual deadline was available on the registrar’s website and would have been given to any voter who directly contacted the office.
Who.What.Why. also found examples of mailers from Los Angeles and San Francisco counties that gave a deadline other than May 31.[12]
Conclusion
William Simpich, an Oakland attorney and Bernie Sanders supporter, claims election official have provided “inconsistent” information and in some instances “bad” instructions to No Party Preference voters seeking crossover ballots to vote for a presidential candidate in the upcoming California primary. After examining published accounts of incorrect information provided to NPP voters and interviewing a voting expert in California, we conclude that Simpich is correct.
See also
Launched in October 2015 and active through October 2018, Fact Check by Ballotpedia examined claims made by elected officials, political appointees, and political candidates at the federal, state, and local levels. We evaluated claims made by politicians of all backgrounds and affiliations, subjecting them to the same objective and neutral examination process. As of 2025, Ballotpedia staff periodically review these articles to revaluate and reaffirm our conclusions. Please email us with questions, comments, or concerns about these articles. To learn more about fact-checking, click here.
Sources and Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 The Mercury News, “California independents favor Sanders, but their turnout is hardly assured,” June 1, 2016
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 California Secretary of State, “No Party Preference Information,” accessed June 2, 2016
- ↑ California Secretary of State, “Voter Registration Statistics,” accessed June 2, 2016
- ↑ The Sacramento Bee, “Activist lawyers sue California on voter rules, possibly boosting Bernie Sanders support,” May 21, 2016
- ↑ San Francisco Examiner, “Judge rejects Bernie Sander’s supporters voting lawsuit,” June 1, 2016
- ↑ United States District Court, Northern District of California, “Voting Rights Defense Project et. al. v. Dupuis et. al.,” May 20, 2016
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Capitol Weekly, “CA 120: Confusion lurks in California primary,” April 25, 2016
- ↑ Capitol Weekly, “CA 120: The voter surge is now,” April 21, 2016
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Paul Brennan, “Telephone interview with Kim Alexander,” June 1, 2016
- ↑ Political Data Inc., “Primary Ballot Requests,” May 28, 2016
- ↑ The Press Democrat, “Error in ballot notices affects hundreds of Sonoma County voters,” April 22, 2016
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Who.What.Why, “Are More Primary Problems Looming in California?” May 28, 2016
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