why don't the US primaries system get challenged in court?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@Robot_Arm

Oh, I guess I’m not actually trying to argue that it’s unconstitutional, just that it’s unfair.

That’s all that needs to be said. What’s legal is making the opportunity equally available to all that wish to participate. Everyone getting an equal voice is inherently impossible. You don’t have an equal voice in the general elections either. You never will, because there will always be some way in which the process will be less fair to some people.

Yes, we should work to smooth out the bumps of unfairness. But we have to define and agree upon what they are first. My guess is that Iowa is killing itself with its inherent unrepresentativeness and that the parties will change the primary schedule not too many elections in the future. But it won’t happen because caucuses take more time than a simple vote. It will happen because their money is being spent less than fully productively.

[lance_strongarm]

@Robot_Arm

The parties are private entities, but the person they select does receive certain public perks. There are public funds available for their campaigns

The public funds come only from a special account that taxpayers voluntarily choose to send a few dollars of the tax money to through a checkoff on their tax returns. So if you don’t like the money going to candidates, don’t check it off.

(The funds only go to presidential candidates, by the way.)

[Robot_Arm]

@Exapno_Mapcase

That’s all that needs to be said. What’s legal is making the opportunity equally available to all that wish to participate. Everyone getting an equal voice is inherently impossible. You don’t have an equal voice in the general elections either. You never will, because there will always be some way in which the process will be less fair to some people.

Yes, we should work to smooth out the bumps of unfairness. But we have to define and agree upon what they are first. My guess is that Iowa is killing itself with its inherent unrepresentativeness and that the parties will change the primary schedule not too many elections in the future. But it won’t happen because caucuses take more time than a simple vote. It will happen because their money is being spent less than fully productively.

True, but I don’t know how you’d fix it in a general election without massive changes, like abolishing the electoral congress or redrawing state boundaries. The nominating process could be made more inclusive by altering the order in which the states hold their primaries and caucuses. And these being private organizations, seems there’s nothing stopping them from doing that if they wanted.

The general election seems unfair by accident, the nomination unfair on purpose; the states with the undue influence have fought to keep it at the expense of other states.

@lance_strongarm

The public funds come only from a special account that taxpayers voluntarily choose to send a few dollars of the tax money to through a checkoff on their tax returns. So if you don’t like the money going to candidates, don’t check it off.

(The funds only go to presidential candidates, by the way.)

You don’t have to give money to that fund, but it doesn’t change my main point, that the workings of these private groups have consequences in the public sphere.

This being GQ, does anyone know the specifics about ballot access rules for the major parties? I’ve never seen Democrats or Republicans out hustling for signatures to get their nominee on the state ballot for president, it seems to be automatic.

[Northern_Piper]

@yabob

Because I didn’t engage brain, or at least google, before putting mouth in gear. Canada has primaries, apparently adopted in the 1990s. And I wasn’t aware of how many other parliamentary systems are adopting or discussing adopting them.

Still not following you, sorry.

We don’t have primaries anything like what you have in the States, and in any event it’s not possible to say “Canada” adopted them because the government of Canada stays right out of the leadership process for the parties. They are private organizations and run their own leadership contests.

[yabob]

@Northern_Piper

Still not following you, sorry.

We don’t have primaries anything like what you have in the States, and in any event it’s not possible to say “Canada” adopted them because the government of Canada stays right out of the leadership process for the parties. They are private organizations and run their own leadership contests.

I didn’t say they were exactly like the US or government sponsored. I was amending my statement about “opaque” because you have a primary process. Either government sponsored or managed entirely by the parties makes the process non-opaque. “Canada” can adopt something without specifically meaning by government mandate. I could talk about Canada adopting some US fashion trend, for instance, which would also probably have nothing to do with the government. Although this article from 2000 refers to them as “Canada’s American Style” primaries in the title:

http://www.hillwatch.com/Publications/Archive/Canadas_American_Style_Primaries.aspx

In the latest wave of reforms, most parties have abandoned the delegate selection process in favour of a one-member/one-vote system in which all registered party members may vote directly on the selection of a leader. This is similar to a US primary except, in our case, parties only hold one national primary and, if necessary, run-off elections.

[Northern_Piper]

Well, here’s how the federal parties work. You tell me if you think they’re primaries.

Liberals:[ul]
[li]All party members who hold membership 41 days before the convention can vote[/li][li]voting is done by electoral consituency.[/li][li]Each constituency has 100 points, regardless of the number of members in that constituency[/li][li]Party members in each constituency all cast preferential ballots[/li][li]the points for the constituency association are calcutated based on the first round choice of the members of that association[/li][li]if no clear winner of a majority of the points of the constituency assocaitons, the lowest ranked candidate is dropped and that candidates’ votes in each constituency association are re-allocated[/li][li]process continutes until a candidate wins a majorty of the points from the constitutency assoicaions[/li][/ul]

Conservatives:

• similar to the Liberal process, including the voting by constituency association, with each association having 100 points regardless of number of members in that association.

New Democratic Party
[ul]
[li]universal franchise for all party members[/li][li]majority needed for all party members who cast ballots[/li][li]party members can vote either by a mail-in preferential ballot, [/li][li]or by attending the convention in person and voting in rounds[/ul][/li]
Green Party
[ul]
[li]Leader elected every four years[/li][li]each party member casts a mail-in ballot[/li][/ul]

Bloc Québécois
[ul]
[li]Leader resigned two months beofre the election[/li][li]Outgoing leader proposed that former leader be re-appointed;[/li][li]Party Council confirmed selection of new (old) leader[/li][li]only one candidate[/li][/ul]

[yabob]

@Northern_Piper

Well, here’s how the federal parties work. You tell me if you think they’re primaries.

Liberals:[ul]
[li]All party members who hold membership 41 days before the convention can vote[/li][li]voting is done by electoral consituency.[/li][li]Each constituency has 100 points, regardless of the number of members in that constituency[/li][li]Party members in each constituency all cast preferential ballots[/li][li]the points for the constituency association are calcutated based on the first round choice of the members of that association[/li][li]if no clear winner of a majority of the points of the constituency assocaitons, the lowest ranked candidate is dropped and that candidates’ votes in each constituency association are re-allocated[/li][li]process continutes until a candidate wins a majorty of the points from the constitutency assoicaions[/li][/ul]

Conservatives:

• similar to the Liberal process, including the voting by constituency association, with each association having 100 points regardless of number of members in that association.

New Democratic Party
[ul]
[li]universal franchise for all party members[/li][li]majority needed for all party members who cast ballots[/li][li]party members can vote either by a mail-in preferential ballot, [/li][li]or by attending the convention in person and voting in rounds[/ul][/li]
Green Party
[ul]
[li]Leader elected every four years[/li][li]each party member casts a mail-in ballot[/li][/ul]

Bloc Québécois
[ul]
[li]Leader resigned two months beofre the election[/li][li]Outgoing leader proposed that former leader be re-appointed;[/li][li]Party Council confirmed selection of new (old) leader[/li][li]only one candidate[/li][/ul]

I’ll just note that wiki has a section in their primary elections article called Primaries in Canada, and their definition of a primary election is:

A primary election is an election that narrows the field of candidates before an election for office. Primary elections are one means by which a political party or a political alliance nominates candidates for an upcoming general election or by-election.

There’s a lot of latitude in that definition.

[Melbourne]

@Tom_Tildrum

Other countries let a party’s candidates get selected by people who are not members of the party? Surely that’s not what you meant to say.

Sort of, yes. In a general sense, in Aus we pick which two candidates will have a run-off election. Since we do it that way, it encourages parties to put up multiple candidates. Real life, of course, is much simpler than that (skip down to end)
*) Putting up multiple candidates is a way of gaming the system, and it’s done by people (from both sides) who want to game the system, and

*) The right is split into two parties, which would give them an advantage, but

*) By agreement, the two parties on the right mostly don’t put up against sitting members, because sitting members are powerful and important people when it comes to deciding party policy, and they personally don’t want to have their jobs challanged, and

*) The left refuses to allow you to select between factions, on principle, not because they object to the “gaming the system” mentioned above, but because they have an internal political idea that regards it as cheating, immoral, and wrong, except

*) Individuals from the left will game the system by putting up multiple candidates when they are not running in contests where the parties are contesting, except,

*) absent the party structure, they have to depend on friends and contacts to run “dummy” candidates to game the system, however,

*) Our upper house allows you to choose between the list of candidates put up by any and all parties to choose who is in the run-off, but

*) right now, it is a LOT more work to choose your own slate of candidates for the upper house, instead of following a party line: I had to individually number 100 candidates, instead of just selecting one party line, and

*) even when there was less difference, it didn’t matter: almost everybody followed a party line, to avoid thinking about the whole damn mess anyway.

===============

Although I can choose from a limited slate of candidates, and a limited slate of factions, the four main parties and scores of smaller parties decide who they will nomindate on the slate, and they get funding only for the moderately successful candidates.