Here are current Humboldt County voter registration numbers by party:

Here’s why some of those numbers are almost certainly misleading, at least as they might reflect the electorate’s intent.

So a few years back you said to yourself: To hell with the two-party system! To hell with it, I say! And to make your disgust known to the world you filled out a new voter registration card and proudly ticked the box that said “independent.”

Well, you want to check yourself sometime pretty soon, because instead of declaring yourself “independent” what you probably did is accidentally pledge allegiance to a curious group of cranks and wackadoodles called the “American Independent Party,” formed in 1968 to support the presidential candidacy of Ür-wackadoodle George Wallace.

This means you won’t get to go to the polls on June 7 and choose a Republican or Democratic ballot, as you thought you might. You won’t get to vote for Bernie or Hillary or Donald or Ted. You’ll be stuck with choosing between the wackadoodles put up by the AIP. (Note: Including Bob Ornelas!) (Another note: Not that Bob Ornelas!)

You have until May 23 to fix this, and we’ll tell you how at the end, here, but since California keeps changing its election rules maybe we’ll spend a moment running down how this year’s primary election will work, at least as far as party registration goes. You have three categories of races:

1. Local races.
2. State legislative and executive offices, and seats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
3. The presidential race.

The local races on the June ballot are nonpartisan. So when you go to choose between Uri Driscoll and Mike Wilson for Third District Supervisor, say, it won’t matter whether you are a registered Democrat or Republican or Green or Libertarian or what have you. They’ll both be on your ballot. What’s more, the ballot will not list their party affiliations. If a candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote in these county elections — a safe bet this year, as both the Third District and the Second District are two-person races — then that candidate is elected. In other years, when there are more than two candidates in a county election, there is a runoff between the top two on the November ballot.

Races in the second category are technically partisan, in that the candidates’ party affiliation are right there on the ballot. However, since the passage of Proposition 14 in 2010 it doesn’t matter how you, the voter, are registered — you get all the options, Republican, Democrat and otherwise, right there on your ballot, however you yourself are registered. You may vote for the person of your choice, regardless of your party or theirs. The top two vote-getters then go on to a runoff in November. Theoretically, then, two Democrats could go into a runoff against each other for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat.

The presidential race is as you might expect it to be. Republicans choose among the Republican candidates, Democrats among the Democratic candidates, etc. The only twist is that if you are not registered with any party — if you’re a true no-party voter, not an “American Independent” — then you may elect to receive either a ballot with no presidential contest, or else you may choose to vote a Democratic ballot, or a Libertarian ballot, or an American Independent Party ballot. (Only those three parties, though — they’re the ones that allowed “no party” people to participate in their presidential primary, if they so choose.)

OK! In other words, the only time party registration matters on your ballot these days is once every four years, in the presidential primary. We’re coming up on that now. So if you want to vote in that primary, and if you think there’s any chance at all you may have accidentally registered with the wackadoodles, here’s what you want to do.

In the first place, you need to call the Humboldt County Elections Office at 445-7481. Keep your driver’s license at hand. Once you prove you are you, election workers can verify which party you are registered with, or whether you are not registered with any party. (UPDATE: The LA Times also has a handy online AIP-checker at this link, about halfway down. Just enter your name, birthday and zipcode.)

If you’re not registered to vote, or if you need to reregister, the quickest and easiest way is to do that online, right here at this link. If you can’t do that for some reason you can pick up voter registration forms at the Elections Office (3033 H Street, Eureka), or at any DMV office or library or post office.

You need to do all of that before the registration deadline of May 23. If you can’t register online and you need to mail a physical voter registration form into the office, be a good person and do that well before May 23.

Again: If you find you were taken in by the wackadoodles, don’t be ashamed. A recent Los Angeles Times investigation found that about 73 percent of the people who are registered American Independent registered that way by mistake. They include Demi Moore, Emma Stone and Sugar Ray Leonard. 

Note to genuine American Independent Party voters, if they exist: We mean no disrespect when we call your party “wackadoodle.” Humboldt loves its wackadoodles.