Talk Elections

Discuss.

For those who want a regional primary system with a few groups of states, please vote "group primary".

I would keep the same schedule since IA and NH are able to get a good feel for the personal qualities of the candidates, generally helping to eliminate a bunch of phony/defective candidates earlier rather than later (no matter how large their war-chest is; e.g., Steve Forbes). I think it is important for candidates to have the people skills needed to win over the people of IA and NH, two small states, one vote at a time. With that said, I would probably prefer a move towards just primaries. Caucuses can be influenced by peer pressure and such, after all. I would rather have private ballots counted up so we make sure that everybody really votes for who they feel is the best candidate for the job without possibly being unduly influenced by their friends/acquaintances...

Prefer? No state run primaries. If parties want to hold them, they're more than free to do so.

Realistically and from those options? National primary. All 50 states vote simultaneously.

Go back to the good old days of delegates chosen by state convention. :)

I have always liked the  Rotating Regional Primary System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_Regional_Primary_System) the most out of all the proposals out there.  

Option 3 seems the fairest, though it's the least fun.

First:
Nationwide caucus, like in Iowa, 15% of delegates*
Anyone below a certain limit is auto-dropped from the race.

Then:
State by state, 85%

Last:
The final step of the "caucus" procedure, where the final 15% of delegates are finally picked


A few notes:
15% would be increased if needed as to remain ahead of the largest state (in this case California).

The Caucus system for those who dont know is in short:
everyone gets together in houses and picks a small representative sample of themselves to go up to the next level
who then get together and do the same thing so that those people
can then get together and do the same thing so that those people
can then get together... etc
until the final step which is, in Iowa, the state convention.

My proposal is a nationwide caucus system, for 15% of the delegates at the final step. At the first step anyone who does not get 1/15th of the base delegates (first-step) then they get dropped

Nationwide primary and caucus.

First round: Nationwide pricus/caumary, where 25% of the delegates are allocated.

Second round: Statewide pricus/caumary, where 50% of the delegates are allocated.

Third round: Statewide convention, where 25% of delegates are allocated.

Option 3, and no more caucuses.

I voted option 3 because it would render farcical primaries even more irrelevant (and make iowans cry), but I like the last option too because it would be easier for 'fringe' candidates to win under Wormy's preferred system obviously.

It'd be awesome to see nationwide caucuses.

Yes.

Regional or national, possibly with a run off or preferential voting. Eliminate the caucuses entirely.

National primary on the first Tuesday in May.

First, where persons other than those registered as affiliated with a party are allowed to vote in the primary by state law, then a caucus is preferable.

Second, the schedule in the process should give preference in the early delegate selection to the smaller states.

Third, winner take all primaries should be prohibited for the first three months of the delegate selection process.

^^
Agreed.  Primaries have led to the selection of some quite terrible candidates.  It's bad enough at the congressional level.  But at the presidential level, you have some of the most able politicians not willing to put themselves through a two year campaign, appealing to two completely different electorates between the primaries and the general election.

Of course, primaries are more fun from the perspective of a political spectator.  ;)

OK, I'm modifying my previous post because I elaborated a bit on it, so here it goes!

I propose that the Presidential primaries would be modified. This is how it would look:

- First round: District primaries; divide the primaries into 50 days, with 8 or 9 Congressional Districts up each turn. Conveniently, a regional approach would be best here.

- Second round: Small state primaries; each state would have its own day! I came up with this because those states with 3 electoral votes may not want to have 2 primaries (1 for the district and 1 for the state per se). So, I came up with this idea for these small states to kick off the state primaries!

- Third round: Remaining state primaries; each state would have its own day!

For each Presidential Primary season, there will be a drawing to allocate all the primaries, that way it can be fairer to every state.

Abolish primaries/caucuses.

Nationwide free-for-all? Yay, that means we could go back to the times where the parties would pick multiple candidates for the general election!! :)

No, that's not necessary.  Just go back to the nominees being decided by party bigwigs a la the pre-1972 system.  Opening the selection of nominees up to the voters via a nationwide patchwork of primary elections is a failed experiment which we should pull the plug on.

Quickly coming to the same opinion myself, sadly.

That being said, if we're going to have a primary system, I would prefer some sort of group primary dates with the states involved following the Texas "prima-caucus" system.

Maybe a creative idea would be to use a two-tier system:

- First round, caucuses to decide who should qualify for the primary ballots (leave the limit to candidates reaching at least 10% or the top 3 or some sort of threshold)
- Second round, primary

That would be nice if all states had this system. Allocate delegates in both rounds.

I wouldn't mind going back to the days when the Congresscritters chose who the nominee for the party would be.  That system broke down during the Era of Good Feelings when we briefly had only one party, but with a strong two party system it works well.

This could work only if there was a fair mechanism for selecting state convention delegates in all states. The current lack of uniformity by the lack of enforcement for rules violations by individual states. If all states had selection by caucus, seating fights over rules violations could undermine candidate legitimacy in today's media-driven environment.

I would actually endorse a playoff-type format, where candidates are paired and, in each state, would face a different candidate.

Say, you had an 8-candidate field. You would have a first round, semifinal and final. With 8 candidates, you can easily have 4 matchups. Then, the winner of each matchup qualifies for the semifinals and then the winner of each matchup there makes it to the final.

I think this would be rather interesting!

Pass a law forbidding open primaries/caucuses and making all primaries/caucuses closed.

Pass a law forbidding caucuses and make all primaries open.