I live in a state that has no party ID (Georgia) when one registers. I just vote for any candidate I wish in a primary or general election regardless of party.
Why don’t more states do this?
Because some state parties prefer closed primary systems so members of the party have more say in candidate selection than non-members.
That makes sense.
But why in the general does a voter need to request a D or R ballot?
IOW, if I vote R primary why do I need to request any ballot for the general? Is it just for absentees?
(Apparently ballot requests this week in Iowa are tipping off Intrade bettors)
In what state do voters request partied ballots for the general election? I’ve never heard of that.
In Indiana, we ask the voter to select D or R in the primary. It’s an open state, and I wish we were closed. A lot of republicans asked for democratic ballots in the 08 primary because they wanted to vote for (or against) Clinton (or Obama), while the r presidential primary was a boring race. The only problem someone ‘crossing over’ to the other side may have is if they would ever be considered to be a state delegate to the convention, where their voting record is examined, and if they voted a ticket for the other party, they’re disqualified to represent the party they’re claiming. It may also disqualify them to represent a party if they work the polls, or run for office.
Are you sure they have partisan ballots for the general election? They’re not just checking the list of ballot requests against the party column in the voter rolls?
Those Iowans are not requesting a “D or R” ballot for the general election. Someone has cross-tabbed a list of those requesting early or absentee ballots against lists showing voters’ registration as Democrat or Republican.
Sometimes states have primary elections at the same time as elections for actual offices or referendum on laws and the like. In that case, voters can choose to get a partisan ballot for one party or the other, which will also include all the “non-partisan” questions, or a non-partisan ballot which will just have the non-partisan questions.
But the D or R ballot only differ in the party-primary content, the stuff for state offices and the like is on both.
I’ve never seen a partisan ballot for an election that didn’t include a primary contest, and I’ve voted in five states.
It just got even worse in The People’s Republic of California!
Not long ago, we had an initiative eliminating party-line primaries! :smack: Now ALL candidates are listed on ONE ballot (well, there are separate ballots in each district because of all the local races and measures), and the two candidates who get the most votes move on to the General Election.
It is entirely possible, therefore, for the two candidates for some particular post to be BOTH Republicans or BOTH Democrats. (This scheme only applies for certain offices, NOT the President. Now I forget if it applies for Senators and Representatives who go to Washington. I think it’s just for the in-state offices.) The primary election just finished is, I believe, the first to use this system.
ETA: Link to a CBS News article on the subject. ETA2: Yes, candidates for U. S. Congress from California are done by this scheme too.
The problem with the new California system being, of course (among others) that multiple candidates from ONE party will tend to split the vote among them, allowing the candidates from the OTHER party to get more votes.
For example, suppose a district is roughly equally balanced between Dem and Repub voters. But suppose 5 Republicans run in the primary but only 3 Democrats. So the Republican voters in the district may split their votes among 5 candidates, while the Democrat voters may split their votes among only 3 candidates. Thus the Democrat candidates will each get more votes, NOT because the majority of voters are Democrat, but just because there are fewer Democrat candidates. See how that works? Then 2 of those 3 will get the most votes and proceed to the general election, while the Republican candidates will be entirely shut out. (Which would suit me fine personally, but hey, we’re discussing the principle of the thing here!)
So you could well have a district with two candidates from one party, even though a majority of voters in the area are of the other party, and those majority voters will have no candidate to vote for.
ETA: So you see, you have a democracy where the People actually get to run things – and you don’t want THAT to happen! :rolleyes:
In fact, Senegoid, that’s what’s happening now in California’s 31st House district. It’s a majority Democratic district, but both of the candidates running in the general election are Republicans. In the primary, there were five Democrats running, who split the vote, letting both of the Republican candidates get on the ballot.
Obviously the Democratic party in CA needs to adopt a primary primary.
The People’s Republic of California:rolleyes:
So allowing people to vote for any candidate they want is Communist?
Political parties, for better or worse, are not part of the government. If they choose to hold closed primaries, they should be able to. It gets trickier if they are doing so on the public dime, as are most primary elections, but if that’s the only way to get on the general ballot their hands are tied.
As far as I know, there are ONLY separate party ballots for primary elections. In general elections, everybody uses exactly the same ballot.
The details and rules vary from state to state. In some states, only a registered Democrat can vote in the Democratic primary and only a registered Republican can vote in the Republican primary. Here in Texas, ANYBODY can vote in EITHER the Republican or Democratic Primary. When you get to the poll, you tell the coordinator(s) which primary you wish to vote in, and you get the ballot for the party you asked for.
I’m a Republican, but I COULD vote in the Democratic primary if I wished, and a Democrat or Independent COULD vote in the Republican primary. But nobody gets to vote in BOTH primaries.
Never mind. astorian beat me to it.
In my district, which is also majority Democratic, we ended up with two Democrats running against each other. It’s such a Democratic district that they both creamed the one Republican in the primary.
That’s why we should probably have something like instant run-off voting or rank-order voting, but I suspect it’s viewed as too confusing for the average voter to understand.
Or even better still, maybe we should have a system where Republican voters get to choose among several Republican-candidate-wannabees, to select one of their own to run in the general election. And Democrat voters get to choose among several Democrat-candidate-wannabees likewise. To do this, there should be some sort of pre-election election for this.
Does anybody know of any place where that has ever been tried? Seems like it would be a good plan.
I know of a city that has that. If I remember right their mayor ran on getting the 2nd place vote. Enough people were running so that her few 1st place votes added to the 2nd place votes made her the new mayor.