Some California Democrats Frustrated by Late Drop-outs Before Super Tuesday

I voted stickers (Joel Pollak / Breitbart News)
Joel Pollak / Breitbart News

LOS ANGELES, California — Many California Democrats who already cast their votes for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) or former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg are reportedly feeling frustrated by those candidates’ decisions to drop out of the presidential race on Monday — the day before Super Tuesday.

The vast majority of Californians vote by mail during the month before the actual primary date. The first ballots were sent out Feb. 3.

Those voters who chose candidates who have since dropped out of the race might have liked to vote for someone else — especially as the clash between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and the party establishment heats up — but they will not have that opportunity.

The San Jose Mercury News reported Monday:

[M]any who already cast their ballots are feeling frustrated as they wake up on Election Day.

“It’s disappointing to think my vote won’t matter,” said Carol Frost, a San Jose librarian who sent in her ballot for Amy Klobuchar weeks ago.

Meanwhile, voters who already sent in their ballots for the candidates who dropped out are out of luck — there’s no procedure for a do-over in California, and voting a second time could violate state law.

Five million Californians voted in the 2016 primary. If the number is roughly the same in 2020, then according to the most recent poll — which included both Klobuchar and Buttigieg — then as many as 10%, or 500,000, could be effectively disenfranchised by those candidates’ sudden departures from the race on the day before Super Tuesday, assuming they voted by mail before Monday.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

This post has been updated to include the assumption of voting by mail for the figure of 10%.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.