# Proposal: Put US off-year Primary Elections on the same day **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 4, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752 "2014-08-04T01:52:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/1 "2014-08-04T01:52:42Z")
The Economist Magazine and the Bipartisan Policy Center advocate scheduling all US primaries on the same day. This is suppose to create a media event and boost turnout. In 2010 under 20% of eligible voters participated in the primary. The current system tends to skew towards the views of partisans, organized lobby groups and political fanatics. A broader base would empower moderates. sub req, I think: > **[A modest proposal](https://www.economist.com/united-states/2014/08/02/a-modest-proposal)** > > Why America should hold all of its primary elections on one day The Bipartisan policy center suggested a June date. [http://bipartisanpolicy.org/strengthen-american-democracy](http://bipartisanpolicy.org/strengthen-american-democracy) [http://bipartisanpolicy.org/news/articles/2014/07/why-‘top-two’-primary-system-won’t-solve-turnout-problem](http://bipartisanpolicy.org/news/articles/2014/07/why-%E2%80%98top-two%E2%80%99-primary-system-won%E2%80%99t-solve-turnout-problem) Personally, I think the primary system is fatally flawed and that this sort of tinkering will only do a little good. But I’ll take incremental improvement where I can get it. Downside: Congress won’t go along because their members benefit from the current system. Response: I’m not so sure. Sure, a narrow-vote primary may have elected the current crop. But they are now incumbents. And if you’re a Republican legislator, there’s always some squirrely dude who can run to the right of you. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/2 "2014-08-04T03:56:33Z")
No one has the authority to make it happen. You’d have to convince each state to cooperate, which seems unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/3 "2014-08-04T04:06:24Z")
Also, you run the risk of spawning nationwide coördinated campaigns to “vote [party],” as you sometimes see in parliamentary countries, rather than localized discussions of individual candidates. Much as we hate the mudslinging against good candidates and local nastiness, I don’t think we’d be better served by having the Koch Brothers and whoever just throwing money against each other on national TV. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/4 "2014-08-04T04:37:07Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > No one has the authority to make it happen. You’d have to convince each state to cooperate, which seems unlikely. Not necessarily. Congress has power over the “times, places, and manner” of Congressional elections, and could probably specify the primary day just as it now specifies the general Election Day. State governments would no doubt be pissed because they would then either have to (a) also reschedule the primary for state offices; or (b) endure the bother and expense of two separate primaries every election year. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/5 "2014-08-04T04:39:33Z")
There is no level of government that can control political parties. Parties are private organizations. Not all states have primaries, not all parties within states that have primaries, have primaries. The federal government can’t control that. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/6 "2014-08-04T05:43:01Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > No one has the authority to make it happen. You’d have to convince each state to cooperate, which seems unlikely. Not really. The Bipartisan Yada Yada group had something like Super Tuesday in mind. You don’t have get all states aboard to generate publicity. Start with 10, say. States that want to expand turnout can jump on the bandwagon. > [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > Also, you run the risk of spawning nationwide coördinated campaigns to “vote [party],” as you sometimes see in parliamentary countries, rather than localized discussions of individual candidates. Well, localized discussions are more theory than practice: witness the Brat campaign against Cantor. He ran on immigration and appeared on Ingram’s national radio show. > [@](#): > > Much as we hate the mudslinging against good candidates and local nastiness, I don’t think we’d be better served by having the Koch Brothers and whoever just throwing money against each other on national TV. ## Oops, this is a good point and compliments your previous one. I suppose the TV networks would love this though: they would secure more ad revenue and more spectacle to cover. The Koch Brothers might care less about who wins the Republican nomination (but only a little), but a jungle primary would bring them back into the fold. I-yi-yi. (Pst: “coördinated”? With an umlaut? 😕) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/7 "2014-08-04T13:24:49Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Personally, I think the primary system is fatally flawed and that this sort of tinkering will only do a little good. You got a better idea? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/8 "2014-08-04T14:01:58Z")
Trial by combat. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/9 "2014-08-04T14:29:14Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > There is no level of government that can control political parties. Parties are private organizations. That boat sailed more than 100 years ago, when states began conducting primary elections to determine party nominees. The primaries are conducted by the state, on a date determined by the state, under rules established by the state, and the state counts the votes and announces the results. A _small_ number of states, such as Virginia, have opt-out provisions under which parties can hold conventions. Most states don’t even have that. The fact is, states are _already_ intimately and organically involved in the party nomination process, and have been for 100 years. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You got a better idea? Yes, I do. States should get out of the party nomination business. Parties should choose their own candidates at their own expense and under their own rules, as they do in every other democracy in the world. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/10 "2014-08-04T15:12:20Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > (Pst: “coördinated”? With an umlaut? 😕) It’s not an umlaut, it’s a dieresis. [Diaeresis (diacritic) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)) The New Yorker uses it all the time for words like reenable, cooperate, and others. It tells the reader not to combine two vowels that would normally be combined. That is, pronounce the word co-ordinated, rather than coor-dinated (or, re-enable, rather than ree-nable). An umlaut changes the pronunciation of the vowel itself, and is not necessarily preceded by another vowel. A dieresis is always preceded by another vowel. You sometimes see it in the name Zoe or Chloe, as well. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/11 "2014-08-04T15:16:17Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > Yes, I do. States should get out of the party nomination business. Parties should choose their own candidates at their own expense and under their own rules, as they do in every other democracy in the world. That’s how it used to be, but a lot of both parties’ rank and file were dissatisfied with the smoke-filled-room system; that’s why primaries were instituted. Were the reformers entirely wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/12 "2014-08-04T15:42:53Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That’s how it used to be, but a lot of both parties’ rank and file were dissatisfied with the smoke-filled-room system; that’s why primaries were instituted. Were the reformers entirely wrong? Boss Tweed once said that he didn’t care who did the voting as long as he did the nominating. I think the issue was and is not that the party nomination process was so opaque, it is that only the nominees from the major parties could get on the ballot. It the process for getting on the ballot wasn’t so closed, who would care who the parties nominated? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/13 "2014-08-04T16:12:44Z")
> [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > I think the issue was and is not that the party nomination process was so opaque, it is that only the nominees from the major parties could get on the ballot. 😕 No, the issue was how nominees get on the **major parties’** ballots. Of course a primary system for the Dems and Pubs does nothing at all to improve ballot access for Libertarians or Socialists. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/14 "2014-08-04T18:34:15Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That’s how it used to be, but a lot of both parties’ rank and file were dissatisfied with the smoke-filled-room system; that’s why primaries were instituted. Were the reformers entirely wrong? Recent research has challenged the traditional view that direct primaries were imposed on unwilling party bosses by progressive reformers. See Alan Ware, _The American Direct Primary: Party Institutionalization and Transformation in the North_. Reformist impulses were important in New York, but not in most states. In many states, party leaders themselves sought primaries, which they correctly regarded as _easier_ to manage than conventions. Big-city machines coexisted happily with direct primaries for several decades afterward. Even today, convention systems are considered more prone to nominate quirky outsider candidates than primaries, in the few states that allow them. > [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > If the process for getting on the ballot wasn’t so closed, who would care who the parties nominated? Well, people _cared_ long before the state-printed ballot. There were furious fights over party nominations at conventions in the Nineteenth Century. But you’re right; the Australian ballot was one of the _catalysts_ for the direct primary in the United States. It was a precondition, if you will. But, it certainly wasn’t a _sufficient_ condition; other democracies around the world adopted the Australian ballot and never gave a thought to government-run direct primaries. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/15 "2014-08-04T20:03:06Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > Not necessarily. Congress has power over the “times, places, and manner” of Congressional elections, and could probably specify the primary day just as it now specifies the general Election Day. I don’t think so - the primary decides who appears on the general election ballot, and the Supreme Court has already ruled that Congress cannot set conditions on who appears on the ballot (when it struck down state-based term limits for Representatives in _U.S. Term Limits Inc. v. Thornton_). ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/16 "2014-08-04T20:14:14Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > Also, you run the risk of spawning nationwide coördinated campaigns to “vote [party],” as you sometimes see in parliamentary countries, rather than localized discussions of individual candidates. I’d say that’s a feature, rather than a bug. As long as even a ‘moderate’ like Susan Collins is going to vote with her party almost all the time, the characteristics of individual candidates are superfluous. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/17 "2014-08-04T20:19:09Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > I don’t think so - the primary decides who appears on the general election ballot, and the Supreme Court has already ruled that Congress cannot set conditions on who appears on the ballot (when it struck down state-based term limits for Representatives in _U.S. Term Limits Inc. v. Thornton_). _US Term Limits v. Thornton_ concerned state-imposed term limits. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the “times, places, and manner” clause. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/18 "2014-08-06T05:26:51Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That’s how it used to be, but a lot of both parties’ rank and file were dissatisfied with the smoke-filled-room system; that’s why primaries were instituted. Were the reformers entirely wrong? As said earlier, I’m not sure if that’s how it happened. The McGovern commission didn’t explicitly set up a primary system. It left selection to the states but mandated extra transparency. The states responded with the primaries, but they didn’t have to and it wasn’t planned that way explicitly. Wikipedia: [INDENT]The McGovern–Fraser Commission established open procedures and affirmative action guidelines for selecting delegates. In addition the commission made it so that all delegate selection procedures were required to be open; party leaders could no longer handpick the convention delegates in secret. The commission recommended that delegates be represented by the proportion of their population in each state.[7] An unforeseen result of these rules was that many states complied by holding primary elections to select convention delegates. This created a shift from caucuses to primaries. The Republican Party’s nomination process was also transformed in this way, as state laws involving primaries usually apply to all parties’ selection of delegates.[/INDENT] [McGovern–Fraser Commission - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGovern-Fraser_Commission) “You got a better idea?” See discussion above as well as proportional representation, ending the filibuster as well as ending Senate approval requirements for massive numbers of Presidential appointees, nonconsecutive 6 year terms for the President, approval voting, Guy Fawkes, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-put-us-off-year-primary-elections-on-the-same-day/694752/19 "2014-08-06T13:56:16Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > As said earlier, I’m not sure if that’s how it happened. The McGovern commission didn’t explicitly set up a primary system. It left selection to the states but mandated extra transparency. The states responded with the primaries, but they didn’t have to and it wasn’t planned that way explicitly. I wish to clarify, that in my post #14 I was referring to the institution of primaries for Congressional nominations, which occurred between 1900 and 1915. The Economist article deals with Congressional nominations, not presidential. The switch to primaries as the primary medium for presidential nominations occurred much later, and involves different processes and issues.