So You're Voting on Tuesday: Here's What Your Ballot Will Look Like

New Yorkers are heading to the polls on April 19^th to weigh in for the first time in the presidential election. Hopefully, everyone is using our cool, new voter guide to help make up their minds and learn where to go.

But, what about that ballot? What do voters need to do to make sure their choices are counted?

Republican voters will see a pretty straightforward ballot listing four candidates: Donald Trump, John Kasich, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz. (Although he is no longer campaigning for President, Carson failed to request his name be removed from the ballot before the March 22 deadline.) Delegates will be apportioned proportionally according to the share of the vote each candidate receives. (See a sample Republican ballot).

The ballot for Democratic voters will look more complicated (but it’s really not).

Democratic voters will see two candidates: Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Voters’ choices here will determine the proportionate share of “pledged” delegates from New York the candidates will receive at the convention. So if candidate A wins 66 percent of the vote in a district with six delegates, candidate A will receive four, and Candidate B two.

The twist is that Democratic voters also vote for the actual “Delegates to the National Convention” on Tuesday. In this section of the ballot, individuals will be listed as “Pledged to support Sanders” or “Pledged to support Clinton.” The ballot instructions will tell voters to vote for between five and seven delegates (this sample Democratic ballot says “Vote for any Six”). 

Votes cast for these delegates have no bearing on how many delegates the candidates receive, but they will determine specifically who will serve as the candidates’ delegates to the convention. Returning to the above example, the votes cast here determine who will serve as the four delegates for Candidate A and the two delegates for Candidate B at the convention. As NY State Democratic committee vice-chair Trudy Mason told the Gotham Gazette, the delegates are “chosen in descending order of votes received on each slate, alternating by gender to ensure equal balance.”

So, how should voters select delegates on their ballot? They may simply vote for all of the delegates pledged to support their preferred candidate. Or, they may vote for delegates they know from either list. There is no harm in voting for delegates pledged to support the other candidate – doing so will not reduce the number of delegates a candidate receives. Also, there is no cause for alarm if a candidate's slate has fewer than the number of delegates called for on the ballot. Because the delegates are distributed proportionally, the candidates will receive their share at the convention.

The bottom line: vote for your preferred candidate; that will be what counts.