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California voting changes raise concerns for ‘Super Tuesday’

In this Monday, July 1, 2019 photo, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla speaks at a gathering of state election chiefs in Santa Fe, N.M., alongside Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, left. An election security official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security at the convention warned top state election officials nationwide to safeguard against fraudulent "phishing" emails targeting state and local election workers. Padilla also expressed concern about such emails that appear as if they come from a legitimate source and contain links that, if clicked, can open up election data systems to manipulation or attacks. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee) In this Monday, July 1, 2019 photo, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla speaks at a gathering of state election chiefs in Santa Fe, N.M., alongside Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, left. An election security official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security at the convention warned top state election officials nationwide to safeguard against fraudulent "phishing" emails targeting state and local election workers. Padilla also expressed concern about such emails that appear as if they come from a legitimate source and contain links that, if clicked, can open up election data systems to manipulation or attacks. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

By JANIE HAR / Associated Press February 28, 2020 4 min read

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Major changes to the way people vote have election advocates on edge as Californians cast ballots in a high-profile primary that was moved up from June so the country’s most populous state could have a bigger say in picking the Democratic presidential nominee.

More than 2.7 million of 20.6 million registered voters had returned ballots in early voting as of Thursday, Secretary of State Alex Padilla said. California is among several states holding elections on “Super Tuesday,” and the state’s 416 delegates are a rich prize for the Democrats slugging it out for the nomination.

“We’re going into this election with record registration and a whole lot of energy,” Padilla said in a phone briefing with reporters Thursday.

California’s primary also comes amid massive changes aimed at expanding voter participation: new voting equipment, vote centers that are replacing polling places in some counties and expanded same-day voter registration.

Those changes may confuse some voters. The fear is that California will end up with a mess much larger than the Feb. 3 debacle in Iowa, where the Democratic Party could not declare a winner for several days because of problems with a new cellphone app used to collect data from caucus sites, among other blunders.