It doesn’t “endorse balkanization”, it endorses not making voting needlessly difficult. Party affiliation is actual useful information to voters. No reason to remove useful information when it can be represented by a single letter.
Why? Voting a straight Republican ticket or a straight Democratic ticket is a valid preference.
Any predictions for the election that year?
Aidan Clinton-Mezvinsky for President!
I admit that sometimes when voting for local offices I go into the voting booth without a clear idea of who to vote for. My strategy at times has been:
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If the ballot tells me who the incumbent is, I ask myself whether I am pleased with how that governmental entity has served my interests over the past couple of years. If I’m not pleased, I vote against the incumbent.
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If the incumbent isn’t listed, but party affiliation is, I frequently vote for the Democratic candidate. I live in Dupage county, where Republicans hold the vast majority of local offices. It’s the same strategy as #1 above.
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If neither is listed, then I vote based on the name of the candidate. I’ll vote for a woman over a man, for instance. And living in the Chicago area, I figure the Irish have held more offices than they should, so I typically won’t vote for anyone named, for instance, Shanahan. I will vote for someone with an obvious Hispanic, Indian, or Middle Eastern name. I feel I’m just cancelling out the vote of someone who would vote against that candidate because of their name.
So, really, does the lack of party affiliation really cause more thought?
In 1994 Minnesota had a “Sharon Anderson” as candidate for Attorney General. She was a perennial name in elections, often roundly defeated. In the Republican primary race she beat the party-endorsed candidate, in spite of the fact that she wasn’t an attorney. (She lost to “Skip” Humphrey in the general election.)
Why did she get so many votes? One theory was that since no one really knew who the candidates were in this primary race, people voted for the name they know, and Anderson is a very common name in Minnesota, plus there was a different Sharon Anderson who was a local talk show host.
This link from 2006 discusses this, and I like this quote:
Exactly. Party branding matters more than positions or policy. Voting shouldn’t be equivalent to choosing a soft drink.
Thankfully the US has not adopted the inferior parliamentary system.
So, it’s an unfair and immoral expectation to desire those who choose the ruling class to know whom they are choosing?
You’re acting as though party affiliation is completely non-predictive of what a candidate will do if elected. It isn’t. It’s a valid heuristic for picking a candidate who broadly supports the things you do. Elections like this one — where a major party has nominated a candidate so far beyond the pale that many in that party are actively repudiating him — are obviously extremely rare, and who at this stage is going to blindly vote for Trump simply because he’s a Republican, without knowing everything he’s said and done up to election day?
A shockingly large and dismaying number, unfortunately.
I agree with Adaher about one primary thing- they really need to cut down on all the rinky-dink local offices on the ballot, or put them in their own separate election at some other time. It’s always dismaying to me to get past the Federal and state sections, and get to the part where I’m choosing between 4 candidates for the office of “Hide and Fur Commissioner” of the county, and I’ve never heard of any of the 4, despite reading up on the election beforehand.
Desire and expect all you want – just don’t go making it harder for voters, IMO. Getting rid of party affiliation makes it harder for voters.
“Wait, there’s a John Smith for District 2 and for County board?! Which one is the Smith I read about? I know he’s a Republican, but it doesn’t say on the ballot!”
Take it a step further, and get rid of all political parties altogether! That way, voters will have research every single candidate, because everyone will be (I)!
A lot of these problems are good reasons to favor a mail-in ballot. Here in WA, we’ve done away with polling booths altogether. My wife I pull out our computers, the county’s mailers and then research each person and issue together as we vote. We generally spend two or three hours and sometimes decide we’ll do more research on particular issues. It’s a much more pleasant and thoughtful experience than when I used voting booths in CA.
That said, some positions just don’t need to be elected. Like local water commissioner. Six candidates finding ways to say “Good water! Low price!” Hmmm…
My strategy is to not vote for an office that I do not know about, or for candidates I do not know about. I disagree that the smaller offices should not appear on the ballot. Just because I don’t know doesn’t mean that others don’t know. However, I do and will continue to personally counsel other that, “Just because it’s on the ballot doesn’t mean you are required to make a choice!” I’ve known a few people running for smaller local offices and they worked tirelessly to get in front of voters, it is not their fault that so few voters are engaged at that level.
I suppose I have higher expectations for those who wish to participate in self governance. It’s bad enough most would have a hard time calculating compound interest. Expecting voters to know who they vote for shouldn’t be perceived as madness. I’ll admit to being a hypocrite on this subject though.
I hope that everyone knows lots about the candidates too, but I think it’s wrong to make it harder for them to vote.
Absolutely no you don’t.
As to why you choose to vote for a candidate may be based 100% on party affiliation.
Which is an equally valid approach to what we see in the US.
#1 the premise is wrong and #2 based on 150+ years experience the American republic model is a podium finish for being the US’s most dangerous export.
One problem with this is, efforts to discourage voting never seem to target different demographic groups equally. (In at least some cases, deliberately so.) Also, who gets to decide how informed is informed enough?
I’d say it’s better to encourage everyone to vote, while also encouraging everyone to become more informed and engaged in the process.
There are a lot of people that do know what going and don’t want to vote ! I heard about 20% of voters don’t want to vote at one point, not sure what that number is now. So how do you get these people to vote?
I’m in Canada. Federal, provincial and municipal elections are never held on the same day. There are separate elections for each, and each has its own ballot.
Short answer: we vote for one Member of Parliament; one Member of the Provincial Legislative Assembly; one mayoral candidate; one city councillor in our ward; and up to six school board members, since the school boards don’t use wards.
For federal and provincial elections, we vote for one and only one candidate for the riding we live in. Right now, we’re in a period where we have five parties in Parliament, but one of those only runs candidates in Quebec.
So at the federal election last fall, there were four candidates on the ballot who represented parties with at least one MP in Parliament. There were also a couple of other minor party candidates, I think, so about six on the ballot. I think that’s about average in my experience.
Similar at the provincial level. The ballot I got had two candidates from parties who had elected members, one from a party that used to be powerful but has fallen on hard times, and a couple of minor party/independents.
Municipal elections we vote for mayor and councillors.
Since mayor is a city-wide position, there’s usually two or three realistic candidates and then about half a dozen minor/independents.
The city I live in uses the Ward system, with single-member wards. Usually not more than 6 candidates on that ballot
We also vote for school boards, either Public or Catholic Separate. They don’t use ward systems, so they have the longest ballot, to elect a board of about six or so. That ballot could have 20 to 30 names on it.
Have you not even heard of Kanye?