I wrote:
I mentioned long ago in the prior thread that my state of California recognises six political parties:
o American Independent Party (the idiot bait), http://www.aipca.org/ o Democratic Party, http://www.cadem.org/ o Green Party, http://www.cagreens.org/ o Libertarian Party, http://ca.lp.org/ o Peace and Freedom Party, http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/ o Republican Party, https://www.cagop.org/
To give perspective (including how little the minor parties matter), here were California's voting figures from November 2012's general election (that re-elected President Obama), in order of vote count: Electoral College Party Vote % Votes Votes Candidates ----- ------ ----- ----------- --------- Democratic 60.2 7,854,285 55 Barack Obama/Joe Biden Republican 37.1 4,839,956 0 Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan Libertarian 1.1 143,221 0 Gary Johnson/Jim Gray Green 0.7 85,638 0 Jill Stein/Cheri Honkala Peace/Freedom 0.4 53,824 0 Roseanne Barr/Cindy Sheehan AIP 0.3 38,372 0 Thomas Hoefling/Robert Ornelas [write-in] 0.2 21,461 0 Ron Paul/Andrew Napolitano Everything below that point was a write-in campaign garnering fewer than 1000 votes. For 2016's June 7th _primary_ (not general) election, California's Republican Party awards _all_ the state's 172 delegates (7% of those available nationwide) as pledged delegates bound to vote (on the first ballot at the Republican convention) for whichever candidate has a _plurality_ of votes. At the moment, Donald Trump is expected to take all of those -- which, along with yesterday's big winnings in New York State puts him suddenly in reach of the nomination. Above (Republican 2016 primary) would be a very rare case of people actually caring about a California primary election: Even though its voting strength is greatest of all the states, California's June polling date is normally too late in the election cycle to matter. On the Democratic primary election side,... well, it hardly matters this time -- as usual -- because Hillary Clinton will have the nomination sewn up well before California votes on June 7th. But, for the record, California's 475 pledged delegates, 12% of the pledged delegates nationwide, are divided into some awarded by Congressional district and others awarded statewide, among all candidates getting at least 15% of the vote. The Congressional district delegates are awarded proportional to vote in each distrct, and the others proportional to vote statewide. In addition to the 475 pledged delegates, there are 73 unpledged delegates, party leaders and elected officials, free to vote for anyone at the Democratic convention. Recent polls show Clinton leading Sanders (my candidate) by about 6-14% in California.