February 02, 2008 08:49 pm
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By Wally Kennedy
wkennedy@joplinglobe.com
So what will happen at your polling place Tuesday?
In Missouri, you will be asked to choose one ballot from three that are available for the Republican, Democrat and Libertarian parties. You can mark your presidential preference on one ballot in the nonpartisan primary.
In Oklahoma, the primary is closed in that you will be asked to declare whether you are registered as a Democrat or a Republican. You will be given a Republican or Democratic ballot to mark.
If records at the polling place indicate you are not registered as a Democrat or Republican, your ballot will be marked provisional until the county election board can certify that you are a member of the party you declared. The Libertarian Party is not recognized in Oklahoma.
In Missouri, there is no such thing as being “a registered” Republican, Libertarian or Democrat.
A voter identification card or driver license must be presented to vote. The ballots are paper and will be optically scanned.
Kay Baum, election officer for Newton County in Missouri, said, “There are three ballots. There are no nonpartisan issues. You will be asked to declare a party — Republican, Democrat and Libertarian — and then choose one of the presidential candidates.”
This does not commit you to choosing the same party next time there’s an election.
Newton County will have 23 polling places. Voters may participate via absentee ballot until 5 p.m. Monday at the county courthouse in Neosho.
Machines for the visually impaired will be available in Newton and Jasper counties.
Bonnie Earl, election officer for Jasper County, said, “We won’t have long lines to go through. We have approximately 48 polling places.
“You choose one of the three ballots, and you can choose any ballot you want to choose.” But you may vote in only one party’s primary.
Voters may participate via absentee ballots until 5 p.m. Monday at the courthouses in Joplin and Carthage.
Both Newton and Jasper counties will have roving bipartisan teams available to send to your house or local hospitals to help voters participate in the primary. They also will be available to deliver more ballots to the polling places if they are needed.
Connie Payton, assistant secretary to the Ottawa County Election Board, said, “We have a closed primary. That means if you are a registered Republican you must vote on the Republican ballot. You have to vote the way you are registered.
“In the general election, you can vote any way you want. In the primary, you must vote within the party you are registered. Independent is not a recognized party in Oklahoma. The only recognized parties are the Democratic and Republican parties.
“Voters are allowed to vote provisionally the ballot of their choice if they think they are listed in the wrong party. The election board will compare the actual registration to what they filled out. If they dispute the ballot of choice, they will go back and check it. It will be counted or not by Friday in front of the election board.”
The Missouri League of Women Voters said the purpose of primaries is to determine which candidates within each political party Missouri delegates will support during the parties’ national conventions for president in 2008.
The purpose of post-primary caucuses is to choose some of the Missourians who will attend the national political party conventions as part of their respective parties’ Missouri delegation there.
The Missouri choices
If I choose the Republican Party ballot in Missouri, what candidates do I get to choose from?
The candidate names in the order they’ll appear on the ballot are: Ron Paul, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Virgil L. R. Wiles, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, Hugh Cort, Alan Keyes and Daniel Gilbert.
If I choose the Democratic Party ballot, what candidates do I get to choose from?
The candidate names in the order they’ll appear on the ballot are: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Ralph Spelbring, Dennis J. Kucinich, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chistopher J. Dodd and Mike Gravel.
If I choose the Libertarian Party ballot, what candidates do I get to choose from?
The candidate names in the order they’ll appear on the ballot are: Wayne A. Root, Daniel Imperato, George Phillies, Michael P. Jingozian, Steve Kubby and Dave Hollist.
The Missouri ballots also carry a box for uncommitted voters.
Ryan Hobart, deputy director of communications for Missouri’s secretary of state, said the uncommitted space on the ballot “is for voters who want to have their vote recorded, but do not have a presidential preference. It depends on the party’s rules whether delegates will be to sent the conventions as uncommitted.”
Paul Sloca, spokesman for the Missouri Republican Party, said it makes no difference whether voters mark the uncommitted space on the Republican ballot.
“Missouri is a winner-take-all primary for the Republicans,” he said. “The uncommitted vote does not play into the selection of delegates.”
On the Democratic side, a sufficient number of uncommitted votes could lead to the naming of uncommitted delegates to the national convention.
The Oklahoma choices
The candidate names in the order they’ll appear on the Republican ballot in Oklahoma are: John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Tom Tancredo, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, Daniel Gilbert, Jerry R. Curry, Alan L. Keyes and Fred Thompson.
The candidates in the order they will appear on the Democratic ballot in Oklahoma are: Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, Christopher J. Dodd, Barack Obama, Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards and Jim Rogers.
Dropouts
Many of the candidates who will be listed on the ballots in both states have dropped out of the races, but are still on the ballots because they dropped out after the ballots had been printed.
1988 Missouri change
Missouri’s system for selecting presidential candidates was more like Iowa’s until 1988. No presidential primary election was held at all. All the parties’ decisions about their candidates were made at the caucuses by people who cared enough about politics to go through the caucus procedure.
You went into your local caucus supporting one candidate, but if that candidate seemed to be losing, other candidates’ people would court you and try to get you to change to their candidate. But in 2000, 2004 and now in 2008, Missouri has held a primary election followed by a caucus.
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