What’s on the Ballot

Primary and General Elections

What’s on your ballot is determined by where you live and are registered to vote. Examples of your ballot and other important voting information can be viewed 40 days before every election.

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.

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 (because they did not have a party affiliation) are now known as having “no party preference” or known as “NPP” voters.

Abbreviations for the qualified political parties are:

• DEM = Democratic Party
• REP = Republican Party
• AI = American Independent Party
• GRN = Green Party
• LIB = Libertarian Party
• PF = Peace & Freedom Party