SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Millions of people have already filled in their ballots deciding who they want in office and what ballot initiatives they want to go into effect.
Many Californians have already voted — some of which have likely voted for candidates who dropped out of the race after ballots were cast. That's left some thinking, "Does my vote not count?"
One of those people is Erin Stumpf, a Sacramento resident who voted for Pete Buttigieg as the Democratic Presidential Nominee right before Buttigieg decided to drop out of the running.
"I waited until yesterday morning to fill it out and turn it in," Stumpf explained. "And it was really disappointing when Buttigieg, the person I voted for, bailed literally a couple of hours after I turned in my ballot."
While voters like Strumpf may feel disheartened that their presidential candidate dropped out after the cast their ballots, their vote will still count — just not in the way that they probably hope.
Sam Mahood, spokesperson for the California Secretary of State, said votes like Strumpf's are still counted.
Even if a candidate drops out, if they get 15% of the vote, the candidate could earn at least one delegate in any congressional district. That delegate then could vote for that particular candidate at the Democratic convention.
California has a total of 415 delegates up for grabs.
Had Stumpf gotten word about her choice dropping out before she turned in her ballot, she could have instead surrendered her ballot, at the vote center or elections office, and gotten a new ballot to chose a different candidate Mahood explained.
"If a voter has filled out their ballot but has NOT returned it, they can take that ballot with them to the polls and surrender it for a new one," Mahood wrote in an email.
Mahood said once a ballot is cast, a voter cannot change their vote, request a new ballot, or go to the polls to vote again.
"Voters may want to revote if they chose a candidate dropped out, but they can't," Mahood said. "A vote-by-mail ballot is considered cast once it is mailed to or dropped off with an elections official or dropped off at a polling location or dropbox."
That's probably not the news that Strumpf wanted to hear. She's disappointed, and understandably so.
"I got burned — the other kind of burned," Strumpf said. "I'm feeling the burn, but not for Bernie Sanders."
The current number of California ballots turned in:
A current list of presidential primary candidates:
Candidates on the Democratic ballot:
- Bernie Sanders
- Joe Sestak*
- Tom Steyer*
- Deval Patrick*
- Michael Bennet*
- Michael R. Bloomberg
- Mosie Boyd
- Cory Booker*
- Pete Buttigieg*
- Joseph R. Biden
- Tulsi Gabbard
- Mark Stewart Greenstein
- Julian Castro*
- Michael A. Ellinger
- Elizabeth Warren
- Marianne Williamson*
- Andrew Yang*
- Roque "Rocky" De La Fuente III
- John K. Delaney
- Amy Klobuchar*
Candidates on the Republican ballot:
- Joe Walsh*
- Bill Weld
- Roque "Rocky" De La Fuente
- Matthew John Matern
- Zoltan G. Istvan
- Donald J. Trump
- Robert Ardini
* The candidates confirmed to have suspended their campaigns or dropped out of the presidential race.
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