Reforming the Primary/Caucus System

[muon2]

I had a college student visit my office last week to get points to use in a debate where he was speaking against the American/California plan. I pointed out that one significant problem which is shared with any other lottery-based plan is the potential cost to the states due to the ever-changing date of the primary.

Obviously a number of states decided that they wanted to jump all over the calendar this year, but it wasn't a complete free-for-all. All the states that moved had to grapple with the changes to election requirements like filing and early voting, and those rules are not the same in every state. Also there are state like IL that couple the presidential primary to the primaries for all other partisan races that year. Having the date moved arbitrarily by an external group conducting a lottery would play havoc with the schedules of all other candidates for office in the state.

The only viable changes I can see are the Delaware plan or a national primary. They keep the date fixed and give the states the best chance to plan their own election schedule in the most cost-effective way. With a fixed date states can decide whether they want to couple primaries or keep them separate, and the decision could be consistently applied from year to year.

[muon2]

All of these plans are terrible so I'll post mine.

1 Have no state having it's primary as the same day as any other place. This is to stop super tuesday style bunching. Basically 50 primaries scattered over from January to June.
2 Have the caucuses held on a different day from the primaries.
3 Have the order be rotating and random.

Would the DNC and RNC coordinate on this?  Because otherwise that would be two different sets of fifty rotating primaries.

The states would never do that, anyway.

By the way, are you named after General Sir Henry "Gravedigger" Havelock?  Because that would be pretty awesome.

It would makes sense to have the RNC and DNC coordinate, otherwise each state will (more than likely) have two primaries, which would double the cost of the election.  Good idea, but VERY hard to implement.

It would also double the cost for states that current hold the presidential primary at the same time as the general primary. This assumes that the national date is unacceptable for the state's general primary.

[muon2]

It would also double the cost for states that current hold the presidential primary at the same time as the general primary. This assumes that the national date is unacceptable for the state's general primary.

How much of the cost of holding an election are for actual election day activities, and how much are for things like voting machines, registration, etc.

There are also other costs behind the scenes, such as processing the voter lists to go to the polling places, and processing early and provisional votes. The cost in Kane County, IL for a special election was about $1 per resident.
 

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If I extend that to the state, a second primary election during presidential years in IL would cost between $13 M and $14 M.