If you were in charge of a State GOP, what sort of primary system is best?
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  If you were in charge of a State GOP, what sort of primary system is best?
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Author Topic: If you were in charge of a State GOP, what sort of primary system is best?  (Read 4940 times)
Oldiesfreak1854
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« Reply #25 on: May 10, 2016, 06:43:32 PM »

I like CA's jungle primary myself.
Top two primaries are unfair, undemocratic, and unconstitutional because they unfairly limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities (Republicans in Safe D districts and vice-versa).  I'm surprised nobody has sued under the VRA to overturn it.
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Mr. Morden
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« Reply #26 on: May 11, 2016, 12:43:44 AM »

I like CA's jungle primary myself.
Top two primaries are unfair, undemocratic, and unconstitutional because they unfairly limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities (Republicans in Safe D districts and vice-versa).  I'm surprised nobody has sued under the VRA to overturn it.

Explain how they limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #27 on: May 11, 2016, 12:52:11 AM »

Open primary. Texas doesn't have party registration, which is nice because party registration is silly and it shouldn't be the state government's job to ensure party loyalty or the ideological purity of primary voters.
Well put. If the state is paying for the primary, I don't see why the state should try to enforce the desires of a party to have only certain voters. If the party wants to pay, then they can set up a pre-registration system for their party. IL uses an open party primary for almost all races, but township party organizations may hold closed caucuses to nominate their slates for township officers.
I thought this was a loophole, where "new" parties could nominate by caucus; so each election a new party would qualify, and choose a name that had the same initialism (eg League Of Loggers, Laughing Out Loud; Loophole Of Lincolnland; would always be "LOL")
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jimrtex
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« Reply #28 on: May 11, 2016, 12:59:33 AM »

The problem with jungle primaries is that it pushes the real action of the election to a low-turnout primary.
Why are elections where the real action occurs low turnout?


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muon2
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« Reply #29 on: May 11, 2016, 07:24:17 AM »

Open primary. Texas doesn't have party registration, which is nice because party registration is silly and it shouldn't be the state government's job to ensure party loyalty or the ideological purity of primary voters.
Well put. If the state is paying for the primary, I don't see why the state should try to enforce the desires of a party to have only certain voters. If the party wants to pay, then they can set up a pre-registration system for their party. IL uses an open party primary for almost all races, but township party organizations may hold closed caucuses to nominate their slates for township officers.
I thought this was a loophole, where "new" parties could nominate by caucus; so each election a new party would qualify, and choose a name that had the same initialism (eg League Of Loggers, Laughing Out Loud; Loophole Of Lincolnland; would always be "LOL")

It's a throwback to pre-primary days. The townships don't elect on the same schedule as other partisan races. They wanted to keep their autonomy to elect by caucus, so they were given the ability.

There are some townships that have internal parties not connected with the major parties, and they do rotate names. That way they need neither a primary nor a caucus, but just a petition as a "new" party. Of course they are not really new parties, so that is the real loophole.
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sportydude
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« Reply #30 on: May 11, 2016, 07:50:59 AM »

primary
closed - I mean really closed, like in New York, unlike in Alaska.
WTA for congressional districts
statewide proportional without any threshold
no superdelegates, of course

Furthermore, if primaries for other offices are held on the same day as the presidential primary, a candidate ought to be allowed to run for two offices.
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Oldiesfreak1854
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« Reply #31 on: May 16, 2016, 03:03:00 PM »

I like CA's jungle primary myself.
Top two primaries are unfair, undemocratic, and unconstitutional because they unfairly limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities (Republicans in Safe D districts and vice-versa).  I'm surprised nobody has sued under the VRA to overturn it.

Explain how they limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities.

In safe districts and states, both general election candidates are from the same party, meaning that minority parties are disenfranchised.  If you live in Los Angeles and San Francisco and you're a Republican, you general election ballot will most likely be all Democrats; there are rural parts of California where the opposite happens and both general election candidates are Republicans.  It basically sends the message that member of minority parties don't deserve to have a candidate that represents them, simply because they're a minority.
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muon2
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« Reply #32 on: May 16, 2016, 03:32:16 PM »

I like CA's jungle primary myself.
Top two primaries are unfair, undemocratic, and unconstitutional because they unfairly limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities (Republicans in Safe D districts and vice-versa).  I'm surprised nobody has sued under the VRA to overturn it.

Explain how they limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities.

In safe districts and states, both general election candidates are from the same party, meaning that minority parties are disenfranchised.  If you live in Los Angeles and San Francisco and you're a Republican, you general election ballot will most likely be all Democrats; there are rural parts of California where the opposite happens and both general election candidates are Republicans.  It basically sends the message that member of minority parties don't deserve to have a candidate that represents them, simply because they're a minority.

The problem is that in safe districts the minority party is far more likely to have no candidate from their party. That's real disenfranchisement. In a top-two system their vote matters and they can select the candidate who better represents them.
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Figueira
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« Reply #33 on: May 16, 2016, 04:40:24 PM »

I like CA's jungle primary myself.
Top two primaries are unfair, undemocratic, and unconstitutional because they unfairly limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities (Republicans in Safe D districts and vice-versa).  I'm surprised nobody has sued under the VRA to overturn it.

Explain how they limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities.

In safe districts and states, both general election candidates are from the same party, meaning that minority parties are disenfranchised.  If you live in Los Angeles and San Francisco and you're a Republican, you general election ballot will most likely be all Democrats; there are rural parts of California where the opposite happens and both general election candidates are Republicans.  It basically sends the message that member of minority parties don't deserve to have a candidate that represents them, simply because they're a minority.

The problem is that in safe districts the minority party is far more likely to have no candidate from their party. That's real disenfranchisement. In a top-two system their vote matters and they can select the candidate who better represents them.

Wouldn't open primaries accomplish the same thing, though?
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SteveRogers
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« Reply #34 on: May 16, 2016, 06:24:43 PM »

I like CA's jungle primary myself.
Top two primaries are unfair, undemocratic, and unconstitutional because they unfairly limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities (Republicans in Safe D districts and vice-versa).  I'm surprised nobody has sued under the VRA to overturn it.

Explain how they limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities.

In safe districts and states, both general election candidates are from the same party, meaning that minority parties are disenfranchised.  If you live in Los Angeles and San Francisco and you're a Republican, you general election ballot will most likely be all Democrats; there are rural parts of California where the opposite happens and both general election candidates are Republicans.  It basically sends the message that member of minority parties don't deserve to have a candidate that represents them, simply because they're a minority.

The reason that that argument will never work in court is because there's nothing in the law that dictates that the general election candidates in safe districts must be from the same party, and you can certainly imagine scenarios where that won't be the case. On its face the law only discriminates against candidates who are less popular than other candidates, and that is certainly something that a reasonable ballot access restriction is allowed to do. I think the top-two system is less than ideal, but there simply isn't anything in the Constitution that requires states to hold conventional primaries.
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Boston Bread
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« Reply #35 on: May 16, 2016, 06:27:52 PM »

For the GOP, I would make the blue states use proportional and the red states use winner take all statewide. Open primaries throughout.

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muon2
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« Reply #36 on: May 16, 2016, 10:20:57 PM »

I like CA's jungle primary myself.
Top two primaries are unfair, undemocratic, and unconstitutional because they unfairly limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities (Republicans in Safe D districts and vice-versa).  I'm surprised nobody has sued under the VRA to overturn it.

Explain how they limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities.

In safe districts and states, both general election candidates are from the same party, meaning that minority parties are disenfranchised.  If you live in Los Angeles and San Francisco and you're a Republican, you general election ballot will most likely be all Democrats; there are rural parts of California where the opposite happens and both general election candidates are Republicans.  It basically sends the message that member of minority parties don't deserve to have a candidate that represents them, simply because they're a minority.

The problem is that in safe districts the minority party is far more likely to have no candidate from their party. That's real disenfranchisement. In a top-two system their vote matters and they can select the candidate who better represents them.

Wouldn't open primaries accomplish the same thing, though?

That depends what you mean by open primaries. IL has open primaries in the sense that any voter can show up on primary day and take either partisan ballot. It doesn't work to improve competition in Nov any more than closed primaries do.
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Mr. Morden
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« Reply #37 on: May 18, 2016, 05:36:37 AM »

I like CA's jungle primary myself.
Top two primaries are unfair, undemocratic, and unconstitutional because they unfairly limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities (Republicans in Safe D districts and vice-versa).  I'm surprised nobody has sued under the VRA to overturn it.

Explain how they limit voters' choices and discriminate against political minorities.

In safe districts and states, both general election candidates are from the same party, meaning that minority parties are disenfranchised.  If you live in Los Angeles and San Francisco and you're a Republican, you general election ballot will most likely be all Democrats; there are rural parts of California where the opposite happens and both general election candidates are Republicans.  It basically sends the message that member of minority parties don't deserve to have a candidate that represents them, simply because they're a minority.

The problem is that in safe districts the minority party is far more likely to have no candidate from their party. That's real disenfranchisement. In a top-two system their vote matters and they can select the candidate who better represents them.

Yep.  With Top Two, I think it's a mistake to even call the first round a "primary".  It's just round one of the election.  So candidates from your party are represented in round 1 of the election.  If your favored candidate doesn't make it to round two, I'm not sure how that's any more disenfranchising than your favored candidate losing with the current system.
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Figs
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« Reply #38 on: May 18, 2016, 07:16:14 AM »

I suppose I could see an argument against such a system, though, in that vote splitting could lead to a top two who don't actually get very much of the vote, and who might not be part of the top two absent vote splitting.

I think it's a good point that it would give people of the minority party a chance to have some buy-in, even if their own preferred candidate isn't on the ballot.
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Mr. Morden
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« Reply #39 on: May 18, 2016, 07:34:41 AM »

I suppose I could see an argument against such a system, though, in that vote splitting could lead to a top two who don't actually get very much of the vote, and who might not be part of the top two absent vote splitting.

Right.  That's definitely a problem with run-offs, which is why IRV is better.  Though with many candidates and no party nomination, I guess that would be a lot of candidates to rank.
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Figs
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« Reply #40 on: May 18, 2016, 09:42:21 AM »

I suppose I could see an argument against such a system, though, in that vote splitting could lead to a top two who don't actually get very much of the vote, and who might not be part of the top two absent vote splitting.

Right.  That's definitely a problem with run-offs, which is why IRV is better.  Though with many candidates and no party nomination, I guess that would be a lot of candidates to rank.


I wouldn't be opposed to something like a two-step jungle primary, where each party has its own process where the top two or three proceed to the free for all jungle primary, rather than everybody who can wrangle some signatures. But at that point, you'd be asking people to come out to vote three times for one election, which seems like it's bordering on onerous.
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angus
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« Reply #41 on: May 21, 2016, 07:29:02 PM »


1) primary or caucus?  Caucus, must be present to win.  Have it on a weekend.

1a) open or closed?  open, with same-day registration (or party change)

2) proportional representation, winner-take-all, or winner-take-most?   proportional

3) what minimum threshold for viability?  if one single voter votes for you, then you are viable

4) will you have any loophole primary system like Pennsylvania, or whatever the hell North Dakota did?  no

5) what date?  same day as everyone else in the United States.  Preferably not more than about a month before the general election.

Additional questions: How does your state's composition of GOP voters affect your calculus?  it does not. 

Additional unasked:  I don't think partisan primaries should be taken as seriously as we take them.  I'd much rather work on the general election than the states or the party primaries.  Frankly, I think that the states and the parties should be allowed to do whatever they want, but the actual election for actual offices in November of even-numbered years should be freed from, and in fact totally divorced from, the states and from the primary process generally.  In my opinion political parties should be banned from the entire process, at least for the federal offices.  Of course that would require a constitutional amendment.  (States, of course, are free to devise whatever system they want for electing governors, etc.)

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muon2
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« Reply #42 on: May 21, 2016, 07:54:59 PM »


5) what date?  same day as everyone else in the United States.  Preferably not more than about a month before the general election.


This would really complicate absentee and military voting. It takes about 3 weeks to certify the results of an election and if one uses the typical 5-6 week period for absentees, then It usually takes 8-10 weeks between a primary and general. If clerks really push I've seen the turnaround down to 6 weeks, but I don't know how to get to a month.
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angus
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« Reply #43 on: May 23, 2016, 11:24:23 AM »


5) what date?  same day as everyone else in the United States.  Preferably not more than about a month before the general election.


This would really complicate absentee and military voting. It takes about 3 weeks to certify the results of an election and if one uses the typical 5-6 week period for absentees, then It usually takes 8-10 weeks between a primary and general. If clerks really push I've seen the turnaround down to 6 weeks, but I don't know how to get to a month.

Does it really take a month to certify votes?  Here's a list from the US Election Assistance Commission of certified voting systems.  No estimate is given for timeframes, but military and other absentee voters can fill out ballots in advance and send them.  You may not even need that.  Votes can be made electronically from anywhere in the world.  The Iowa Democratic Party announced that they will allow overseas voters to participate in their caucus by teleconference.  Results can be tabulated immediately and announced the same day.  This leaves plenty of time for run-off elections to be organized in the event that no one gains a majority, which seems likely.  Here's a state-by-state list of laws regarding certification of results.  The timeframes vary greatly by state.  Georgia gives them as little as 14 days.  California gives 35 days.  That really ought to be a priority.  Clear your calendar.  Get it done.  Why on earth would it need 35 days?

I suppose it's really up to the parties.  They seem to like having places like Iowa and New Hampshire narrow down the choices for everyone else, but it's not the system I'd create.  I also really like the idea of de-emphasizing parties.  Obviously political factions are allowed to exist, to recruit, and to endorse, but there's no good reason to allow political parties to set the rules for electing president.  For president, I'd have a primary and let the top two, regardless of political affiliation, run off in a general election, held as soon as possible after the primary.  The shorter time frame is to minimize the effect of money in a way that doesn't require additional legislation.  There's only so much advertising/organizing you can do in a few weeks.

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