Reforming the Primary/Caucus System (user search)
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  Talk Elections
  Presidential Elections - Analysis and Discussion
  Presidential Election Process (Moderator: muon2)
  Reforming the Primary/Caucus System (search mode)
Pages: [1]
Poll
Question: Which reform proposal do you support?
#1
Graduated Random Presidential Primary System (American Plan)
 
#2
Delaware Plan
 
#3
Rotating Regional Primary System
 
#4
Interregional Primary Plan
 
#5
National Primary
 
#6
Other -please elaborate
 
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Partisan results

Total Voters: 39

Author Topic: Reforming the Primary/Caucus System  (Read 23368 times)
Frodo
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« on: January 04, 2008, 10:37:19 PM »

And here are the brief descriptions (from Wiki) of each reform proposal, along with their links:
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Graduated Random Presidential Primary System (American or California Plan)

Under this system the campaign period would be broken into ten two-week periods in which an escalating number of electoral votes would be contested. This plan was developed in response to the trend toward front-loading in recent primary campaigns and the influence wielded by Iowa and New Hampshire, which traditionally hold their nominating events before any other state.

Critics of the California Plan point out that its random selection system could lead to high travel costs for candidates, and that it may be biased toward liberal states.

Delaware Plan

The Delaware Plan is an attempt to provide all states with meaningful input into the electoral process. The states and territories are divided into four groups, by population. The smallest 12 states and all the territories by population would be the first group, or "pod". The smallest thirteen of the remaining states would be the second group, the next thirteen the third group, and the largest twelve states would form the final group.

The plan was originally proposed by the Republican National Committee in the spring of 2000, to take effect in the 2004 campaign. However, it was voted down by the general convention that summer.  Republican leaders worried that, if they acted unilaterally, that they would be handing a huge advantage to the Democrats. If the Republicans did indeed use this plan, it would be almost impossible to know who the GOP nominee would be until early or mid-June. But if the Democrats maintained their primary schedule unchanged, then the identity of the Democratic nominee might well be clear in March. This, said some Republican strategists, would provide the Democrats with a three-month "head start" on the general election.

There is also criticism that the Delaware Plan may be biased against more liberal candidates from either party. Although the first round of the primaries is pretty evenly split between Blue States and Red States, the second round has 2 Blue States to 10 Red, and the third round has 4 Blue States to 9 Red. This could bias both parties toward more conservative candidates within their ranks.

Rotating Regional Primary System

Under this system, party primaries/caucuses to select national convention delegates would be grouped by region beginning in 2012.

A lottery would be held to determine which region would begin the sequence the first year of the plan. The next presidential election year, the region that held the first position would move to the end of the sequence, and the other regions would move forward.

Iowa and New Hampshire would retain their leading positions in the presidential selection process based upon their tradition of encouraging retail politics.

Primaries/caucuses in each state of a given region would be scheduled on or soon after the first Tuesday in March, April, May or June of presidential election years. States in the same region wouldn't necessarily be required to hold their primaries/caucuses on the same day.

Interregional Primary Plan

In the Interregional Primary Plan, the country is divided into geographical regions. On each primary date from March to June, one state from each of six regions votes. Each election date would contain a wide variety of perspectives. The order of the states in each region is set by a lottery. In a 24-year cycle, every state would have a chance to be among the first primary states. The primary criticism of this plan is that travel costs would be quite high: in each round, candidates would essentially have to cover the entire country in order to effectively campaign. Contrary to most reform plans, this would reduce the ability of lesser-funded candidates to build up from small contests to large ones.

National Primary

A national primary is a proposed system for conducting the United States presidential primaries and caucuses, in which all of the primaries and caucuses would occur on the same day








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Frodo
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Posts: 24,582
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« Reply #1 on: March 16, 2008, 08:56:25 AM »

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