Why do we need to have each party represented on the general election ballot?
I’m thinking of something like this:
We eliminate caucuses and primaries, and hold a general election at that time. If anyone gets more than 50% of the vote, that person becomes the next (whatever office he or she is seeking), but if nobody does, the top two contenders get put on the November ballot, and everyone gets to vote again to decide whom they want out of those two.
The main advantage would be that nobody gets to complain about third candidates “spoiling” the results, and that the eventual winners would truly have a majority behind them. I suppose it would give independents and third parties a better chance at winning as well, since the idea of throwing your vote away would be gone.
Sometimes, that might mean we have two Democrats or two Republicans squaring off against each other in November, but I don’t really see that as a bad thing. What I do see as a bad thing is someone winning office without a majority vote.
Oh really? You’re going to ban like-minded people from discussing among themselves which of them has the best chance of winning the election? Because if you’re not, you’re not eliminating caucuses and primaries, you’re just pushing them forwards six months so that they’re still ahead of your new plan.
There is no reason to split these two steps up by six months or whatever. Just start using preferential voting and let people list their first, second, third choices for the job, with their vote being passed down until either somebody has the votes they need or you hit your “…and screw everyone else” threshold and your vote is passed no further.
CM, do you fully understand that primaries are party elections, and general elections are all-voter ones? The difference is blurred in many people’s minds, and that’s where the “why do we bother with two elections” question seems to come from.
As long as we have party politics, we will pretty much need primaries.
Since I think party politics is long obsolete, I’ll bow out now.
You realize that the ballot would be about ten feet long in your scenario because there would be no way to filter candidates? It would also be far easier for the rich to get elected because their opponents would be splintered and pretty voiceless.
The top-two primary is the way it’s been done in California for a few years now. At least in theory, it offers an advantage to the more moderate candidate in districts which are strongly dominated by one party or the other.
Not sure it’s made a huge difference, but it seems to work just fine. It’s much better than having districts where the general election is essentially irrelevant, where the majority party’s primary winner pretty much gets a free pass.
Suppose that we decided to do that with the polls the way they are right this instant. The results would be Clinton vs Sanders in the final election because the plethora of Republican candidates would splinter the conservative vote. Even if the conservatives actually represented the majority of the voters, it would result in a guaranteed Democratic victory.
After one election of this, people of a similar ideological bent will realize that in order to make it into the final round, they need to designate a single standard bearer to represent their view point, or else they risk being splintered out of existence. The smaller of these groups will band together to have a better chance of actually having influence on the system until Bingo, you suddenly find yourself with two political parties again. The two party system isn’t the way it is by design, it just naturally arises out of electoral game theory.
While I don’t agree with the OP’s solution, I have long been an advocate of eliminating primaries. Allowing the general public to decide who a major parties candidate will be is ridiculous. For one thing, it encourages cross over voting. Why should supporters of one party be able to help determine who the candidate of the other party should be? A minor office but this is exactly what happened in Milwaukee Counties Sheriffs election last fall.
My evidence of the flaw of primaries is that the Republicans have consistently ran the wrong candidate for POTUS since 1992. Even when they won it wasn’t the right person for the job. This was entirely the fault of the primary system.
The primary system has allowed for sectors of the parties to sway from their core beliefs, resulting in "RINOS’ and “BLUE DOGS”.
If the solution is to return to the days of “smoke filled back rooms”, I say so be it!
You do realize that in most primary systems, only members of a party are allowed to vote for candidates from that party? It’s not “the general public” deciding, it’s all registered voters who are also Dems/Pubs/Greens/Whatever.
I don’t know how many states have open primaries, but even California has only dabbled in it once or twice before going back to closed voting, entirely on what is (IMHO) the spurious notion that cross-voting will upset an election. The rare case of a a few hundred cross-votes bending an election for water board official or whatever is not a good enough argument to close primaries, but then, I’ve already said I don’t think much of party politics.
No, this was entirely the fault of Republican voters. At the Presidential level, I don’t think even rampant cross-voting could sway the outcome, so if Pubs aren’t nominating who you think should be nominated, it’s time to have a little chat with your fellow nominators. One way or the other, Republicans are going to choose the Republican candidate; if you’re out of sync with the majority, it’s called “democracy.” The “primary system” is not what’s doing this.
The last major instance of this was the special election for California Governor. There were… a hundred candidates(?), from every party except Britain’s Raving Monster Looney Party, and quite a few independents. Some android won… a guy who almost certainly could not have carried a regular election and proceeded to screw up the state pretty thoroughly.
In about half (or 2/3, depending on your definition) of the states, the general public is allowed to vote in any primary they want, with minimal hurdles to clear. I’ve had to declare a party to get a ballot, then immediately after I voted I tell the ballot workers that I’m back to being unregistered and they move me back. That’s sometimes referred to as semi-closed, but it’s effectively an open primary if you want it to be.
Not sure what the numbers are by voting populations, but counting by states the majority have some form of open or modified open primary. California isn’t open or closed, but some other big population states (NY, NJ, FL, PA) are.
About 40% of the states have open primaries and some of the rest have provisions that would allow someone to do what **Telemark **described. So my contention about cross over voting is correct and it is a significant problem.
On top of that, unless you are a member of an organization, why on Earth should you be allowed to tell an organization who their representative (i.e. candidate) will be?
Okay, open primaries are more widespread than I thought, and while I liked having an open ballot the one or two times one was offered, I can see the arguments for party-only voting. The whole thing seems to be an institutional-level denial and misunderstanding of what a primary is.
I’d still have to see confirmation that cross-voting is anywhere near the problem it’s claimed to be. But my objection would still be on the “primaries are for party members to choose their candidate, not an open election” basis.
Basically, slime wrapped in skin David Duke manged to eke out a spot alongside an actual candidate (Edwards, the ‘Crook’) because of a list of nonsense done by the other real candidates which is frankly quarter-century-old state politics at this point and I just linked to the Wikipedia article.
My point is, in a jungle primary system, a big tent popular party where all of the potential candidates are broadly similar in worldview can go from having a primary where a candidate acceptable to people of that worldview is chosen to contend in the general election to being a broad field of candidates who, despite the fact they collectively command a plurality or even a majority, can’t individually get enough votes to move to the second round of voting, leaving a goodly chunk of the people with nobody to vote for when the real election comes around. Thus you get a damnable Klansman contesting a statewide election in 1991.
While it’s not a major office, this is the most recent example I can come up with:
In the 2014 Democratic primary for Milwaukee County Sheriff Davide Clarke won 52-48%. Clarke was appointed to the position by a Republican Governor in 2002 when the previous Sheriff retired mid-term.
Clarke is NOT a Democrat. But he is forced to run as one as no Republican would get elected Sheriff in Milwaukee County at this time. The winner of the Dem primary for Sheriff always wins the general.
A lot of otherwise Republican voters crossed over and voted for Clarke in the Democratic Primary. There were no major Republican primary races for other offices during that election cycle. Had there been, those Republican voters would not have crossed over to vote Democratic, and David Clarke most certainly would have lost. Democrats overall can’t stand him. I normally vote Republican and I can’t stand him.
Like I said, it’s not a major office compared to POTUS, but it is an example of how cross-over voting does affect elections!
