I understand from reading newspapers that there are presidential primaries going down in that Big Country In The West right now, but I’m buggered if I can figure out exactly what they are. The only websites I’ve found about this sort of thing more or less assumes that you know about it already, so I’ll ask here and try to survive the righteous chastisement.
I’m led to understand that the purpose of the primaries are to select the candidates that will later run for president. Right? Who gets to vote? Everyone in the state? 'Cause if I were a Republican, I’d go vote for the dumbest, ugliest, silliest excuse for a Democratic candidate I could find, to provide the least resistance for my favourite candidate in the actual presidential election. Or is it only party members that get to vote?
Another thing, while I’m on it. What’s this business about registering to vote? I know you have to register in order to be allowed to vote, but in this one episode of Futurama where they go to register, they appear to have to choose a political party during the registering process. Do you have to be a party member to vote? Yeah, this is what happens when you get your political clues from Futurama.
In the US, major parties hold elections to choose delegates to their big conventions, who choose their nomination for President. Each state holds some variety of contest, which may be a primary election or a caucus in order to choose the delegates. The rules of the election or caucus are a mix of state law and local party rules. So every state is somewhat different. Each state may choose to hold their primary contests whenever they like. Iowa and New Hampshire are the earliest, and this week was “super tuesday” on which ten states, including a bunch of big ones, held their primaries.
Depending on state law and local party rules, the primary may be open only to registered members of that party, or open to everyone. In addition, I believe there is a state or two where one party has chosen to hold open primaries while another is closed.
In order to vote, you must register, which usually involves filling out a form. You only have to register once, then you can use the same registration to vote in every election thereafter. (Unless you move, in which case you have to re-register in your new district.)
When you register, you can choose to register with a party or not. (Thus the terms “registered republican,” “registered democrat” and so on.) In closed primary states (most of them) you must be a registered member of the party to vote in its primary. In the general election, you may vote for whomever you wish, regardless of which party you are registered in.
In the open primaries, does it happen that sympathizers of the other party show up to vote for the candidate they believe to have the least chance of beating their own candidate?
I’m sure it happens a little bit, though I believe in all cases where there are open primaries, you can choose to vote in one party, but not the other. So if you are a Republican, and decide to vote in the Democratic primary for Al Sharpton, it would mean giving up your right to vote in the Republican primary.
Open primaries have been controversial of late and IIRC a few states have had their open systems declared unconstitutional for various reasons, so we may not have them much longer.
In some states, like Virginia, you simply register to vote. You can not indicate any party affiliation. There’s just no place on the form to show your preference. Not even an option. So, Virginia is, by default, an open primary state. Like other states, however, you can vote in either the Republican primary or the Democratic primary, but not both.
And just to clarify, in those states in which you do register as a “member” of one party or the other, it’s not as if you have to go to the party headquarters first, sign up, pay some membership dues, and get a card. You’re simply indicating which party you feel some allegiance to and, therefore, which party’s primary you’re going to be voting in.
In fact, given the privacy laws, I don’t believe that information can be released to anyone - i.e., I don’t think the Republican party could go to the registrar and demand to be given a list of all the “registered” Republicans. (I’m not sure about this - if I’m wrong, someone will surely come along and correct me!)
While it may vary by state, your registration is usually considered part of the public record. I get postcards from Democratic candidates asking me to vote for them in the primary, but nothing from Republican candidates.
Well, on a somewhat-related note, Georgia representative Cynthia McKinney lost due to Georgia open primary system. She was… controversial (to say the least) and Republicans (and many, many Democrats) really couldn’t stand her.
Now, because incumbents rarely lose their seats to members of their own parties in primary elections, no one really paid attention to her Democtaric rival, Denise Majette. A coalition of Democrats and Republicans voted for Majette in the primary and Majette won - effectively kicking McKinney out of office.
Sometimes votes in a primary election can be seen as “protest votes” against an incumbent politician. When George Bush Senior ran against Bill Clinton, he was challenged in the primaries by Pat Buchanan. Pat had some momentum for a while, but I would guess (keyword: guess) that only about 10-20% of the votes he received in the primaries were “for” him while the rest were “against” Bush for his “No New Taxes” gesture.
The smaller fringe parties often don’t hold primaries, since their membership is so small. They can generally decide who their nominee will be simply by having some meetings on a local or regional basis. The Green Party, being a bit larger, has primaries in 21 states, with the delegates from other states being chosen by caucus or by a state convention. The Libertarian Party also holds some primaries, but I’m having trouble finding out the number of states in which they do so. Their website is silent on the subject - if the information is there, I can’t find it.
Sometimes, these smaller parties have trouble conducting their primaries. Because they’re too small to qualify to be listed on the voting machines, they end up on paper ballots. The state officials conducting the voting often don’t know how to handle these ballots, and votes get lost. Here’s just one example.
The smaller parties can be hit even harder than larger parties when states don’t require registration by party, or when they allow voters who are registered as independents or “unaffiliated” to vote in any primary. A few Democrats voting in the Republican primary can only accomplish a limited amount of mischief, but a smaller party’s ability to choose its own nominee can be more seriously affected by non-party members voting in its primary. The issue is still in the courts.
Smaller parties do not generally have a statewide primary process using the public voting sites and so forth. This can be for several reasons.
Laws in some states make it difficult for a small party to qualify as an official political party. In that case you don’t have that option when you register to vote, and that party is not afforded use of the Boards of Elections or whatever institutions may be relevant in the state.
If the party has to fund some portion of the primary election, it’s not cost-effective for a tiny party to pay for voting sites and/or the counting at numerous sites across the state.
In some states volunteers from each party, rather than government-paid election workers, man the polling stations for a primary. The logistics of a small party doing this in every precinct across the state are overwhelming, and of course you also run into a greater chance for voter fraud.
For these or other reasons, smaller parties usually hold a state convention to choose candidates to appear on the state ballot and delegates to the national convention. In those states where they are official parties, the party’s slate of candidates will be placed on the general election ballot automatically (or nearly so), with the name of their party, if state law provides for this.
Parties which are not recognized as “official” by a state must go through a more rigorous process of obtaining signature petitions to place candidates on the general election ballot. For US and state representatives, etc, they usually need the signatures of some percentage of voters from their district who voted in the most recent election. Same thing statewide for president, US Senate, governor, and other statewide offices. The party label under their name will be “Independent” or blank, depending on the state.
Incidentally, the conventions are not a surefire protection against unwanted meddling by those the party establishment might like to keep outside. About 10 years ago, shock jock Howard Stern “crashed” the state Libertarian Party convention with numerous fans, and came away with the party’s nomination for governor of New York. Similarly, conservative columnist Pat Buchanan essentially hijacked the 2000 Reform Party (started by Ross Perot) convention and won its nomination for president.