Washblog

   An IRV General Election and No Primary at All, offers the best solution out of this alley. I'm a Democrat, and member of the WSDCC, but I liked the old 1935 primary system.
  You really neglect Act minus I and before, the desire by both (and the libertarians and others) to close down the primary has a long history. But it wasn't until them Californians (by Initative) decided to switch to a primary system modeled on Washington's that the stage was set for what we have now! Once SCOTUS upheld, it was only a matter of time.
  The Grange's 1935 Initiative to reduce/eliminate the "smoke filled room" influence was and is doomed. The court has concluded the 1st amendment "the right of the people peaceably to assemble," includes the right to peaceably exclude individuals from your "assembly".
  The current proposal to make all elective office non-partisan and still winnow the field to the "top two" will not work as well as an IRV single General Election would.
  And the Parties can still have the caucus, convention cycle. Just because affiliation is not on the ballot won't change the fact that those of us who try to be informed will know who is who. And maybe those who don't pay attention will have a little more reason to become involved. With IRV, your vote eventually DOES count, even if it's in the "third round".

  I don't buy the criticism I heard from a Legislator once, "IRV" is too complicated for the average voter.

Dave Gibney Pullman

by gibney on Wed Aug 23, 2006 at 10:27:44 PM PST

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Please, please, please...

Think about running for Lt. Gov. in '08.

IRV and other structural election issues could be addressed from the LtGov job.  If Brad Owen is going to pursue vanity issues, why not use that position to push IRV?

I'd support you.  You're a Democrat, right?

by Belltowner on Thu Aug 24, 2006 at 01:16:40 AM PST

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I agree that the primaries that the parties want is to poll their members.  That makes perfect sense, with a small problem.

Why am I paying for the Republican primary?

Why is a Libertarian paying for our primary?

Caucuses are funded by the parties, and if the party wants to poll its members to decide who will be the "official" party candidate for an office, that is the way to do it.

Elections are funded by the state, and are used to winnow down the field so that we can get a clear winner.  That is another matter entirely.

by jbarelli on Thu Aug 24, 2006 at 01:13:08 PM PST

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To dlaw and N:

Washington is different. The majority of voters, even a lot of us who are active in party politics, like the idea of non-partisan, or non-partisan like, primaries. It has been tradition since 1935 and was passed by a wide margin two years ago.

The short answer is that we're just used to it, and to people who aren't active in monthly party meetings, but are still active politically and civically, like the idea of pulling the nose of the parties while we choose our candidates. Its a way of saying "it not your process, its our process."

Anyway, the long answer has to do with why we're in this situation right now. California voters actually ruined the game for us. If they hadn't tried to copy our system, the series of court cases that led to the Top Two being thrown out wouldn't have come together.

So, why did California voters want to throw the parties out of the primary system? Well, California politics are poisonus. The parties have so much control down there that the debate just turns people off. Its based on television campaigning (which typically turns negative) and doesn't promote engagement.

Changing the primary system down there was an effort to change politics. By taking the power to put someone on the general election ballot away from the parties, they were trying to open up the process.

________________
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by emmettoconnell on Thu Aug 24, 2006 at 02:33:49 PM PST

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I don't check in often, but the issues here are extremely important to me so I hope you don't mind that I'm getting around to it a little late.  This really raises a collection of distinct but confusingly associated ideas, which I would like to try to separate and consider in their turns.

1.  The Washington State Blanket Primary that the old-timers know and love is clearly unconstitutional, and the United States Supreme Court made it clear what is wrong.  The State (the Government, the People) cannot tell a Party how they are to choose their candidates.  The State can only define rules for selecting representatives (Governors, Senators, Secretaries of State, etc. which I group broadly here to mean all officers who are elected to represent the people).  Free Association means freedom to set your own rules.  There are some specific exceptions to this principle that are permitted to remedy the exclusion of Constitutionally recognized groups, but none of those exceptions are related to the Blanket Primary.  The Blanket Primary is not legal, and we should get over it and move on.

2.  While a "Top Two" Primary, where the State does not assign winners to Parties, may be Constitutionally sound, it is stupid.  The declared intent is to open up the nominating process and permit voters to have more choices.  The Blanket Primary that was tossed out, moved forward one Democrat, one Republican, and some number of random candidates who qualified through other means allowed to "minor parties".  The "Top Two" format presents voters in November with only two options, regardless of how many people file.  In the 2004 Governor's race, we had 3 candidates on the ballot.  The Lieutenant Governor's race had 4 candidates.  The "Top Two" Primary would have presented 2 and 2.  That is obviously less choices for most voters, not more.  Fewer voters will have the option to choose a Green, a Libertarian, or a straight up Independent, because fewer voters turn out for the Primary than the General.

Some dreamers argue with me that the "Top Two" Primary will encourage more voters to come out in September, but I'm pretty sure the Presidential contest in the November General Election will continue to be the biggest draw, regardless of Washington State election law changes.  In 2004, that would have meant more than a million Washington voters would have been unable to vote for third-party and independent candidates.

I also recommend that "Top Two" supporters look at the Louisiana primaries.  In Louisiana, many incumbents wind up running unopposed.  A known legislator can win more than 50% of the vote in the Primary on name recognition and a big-budget advertising push.  This causes people to essentially write off any opposition in the General Election, because it has already been demonstrated that the incumbent can beat all comers put together.  Knowing this, opposing Parties choose not to waste their resources in a District where there is no hope of beating the incumbent in the Primary.

When a seat is left vacant in Louisiana, so there is no incumbent, a number of moderate candidates tend to split the moderate voters, and more radical candidates that have a small but dedicated following can win a slot on the General ballot.  This is how David Duke wound up on the General Election ballot for Senate in Louisiana, and he is not the only example.

There is no indication the the "Top Two" Primary will achieve the stated goals of making elections more open, or breaking the power of political parties.  If anything, it appears that it will present fewer choices to the largest number of voters, and consolidate the power of incumbents.

3.  Removing Party designations from the ballot is no favor to voters.  I can't imagine why people repeatedly suggest that making elections "non-partisan" will somehow open the process to more participation and less Party activity.  People will continue to band together.  Political Parties will continue to exist.  Candidates will continue to associate with their funders and friends, and get help from groups of politically interested people.  Do you want this to be stated openly and plainly on the ballot and advertising?  Or do you want it to be done in secret?  Remember, the King County Sheriff's office is "non-partisan", and one Dave Reichert served in that office "with no party affiliation..." until he made enough of a name for himself that he wanted to run for a partisan office.  Then it became clear he was a Republican.  Do you think he changed his leanings at that point, and stopped being Non-Partisan?  Or do you think he is more likely to have leaned Republican all along, but was protected from declaring his affiliation because he was running for "non-partisan" office?  I think voters deserve all the information they can get, and knowing a candidate's Party Affiliation is valuable information.  Why would anyone want to let Candidates off the hook?

4.  Many people ask "If the State can't tell Parties how to choose their candidates, why does the State have to pay for Primary Elections?"  This is a legitimate question, and it deserves a considered answer.  In a theoretical sense, the principle is absolutely sound:  candidate selection is a Party activity, so the Party should pay for it.  This is, in fact, the way politics was conducted in America for the first 125 or 130 years.  Then people all over the country passed Primary Election laws in the early 20th Century to change the practice.  

I went to my Precinct Caucus in 2004 and there were 52 people there.  In the Primary Election later that year, there were 229 Democratic voters.  At the General Election, 537 people in the Precinct voted for John Kerry.  Given the level of enthusiasm shown in the early phases of the 2004 election, I find it difficult to imagine that many more people would come to a caucus than we saw there.  So the Caucus process samples about 10% of the people in the precinct who are likely to vote for a particular Party.  At best.  You think the "smoke-filled rooms" of the 1950's and 60's were an appalling subversion of Democracy?  Imagine what candidate selection must have been like in the 1880's, before those smoke-filled choices had to stand for a Primary Election.

I believe the People voted to underwrite the candidate selection process for Major Parties because they wanted to increase direct participation.  The People agreed, 100 years ago, that it was better to chip in and do it under State supervision, than to let the Parties decline to fund the process at all and leave the selection process to a few big wigs.  Even administered in good faith, no caucus and convention system could possibly accommodate the level of participation that even our meager State-run Primaries turn out.

5)  Instant Runoff Voting will not change Party dynamics.  That's because Primary Elections are not what gives two parties a lock on political power.  Remember, Theodore Roosevelt's "Bull Moose" third-party sank before Primary Elections were common.  There have been two principle parties in America throughout its history, except at a few key junctures when there was general upheaval.  We have nominally had the same two parties for almost 150 years, almost a third of which time was before the institution of Primaries.  As described above, Primaries were not a power grab by the two Parties, to lock out third-party contenders.  They were a move by populist reformers to break the power of the Parties.  And to a large extent, they worked.  My point is, if the Primary Elections aren't the problem, then eliminating the Primary is not the solution.

Why is America locked in to two Political Parties?  It is because of the "winner take all" form of General Election voting.  The fact that every seat is chosen in a separate election means every position has one winner and a collection of losers.  In order to beat that winner in the next election, the losers must find a way to band together around a candidate they all find acceptable.  So there is always one Party that is "in", and one Party that is "everyone else."  You only need to consider the Nader candidacy and the Perot candidacy to see how it works.  When one Party splits, the other wins.  You can't have three viable candidates, so you can't have three viable Parties.

With that understanding, you can see that Instant Runoff Voting changes nothing.  There will still be a single winner for each race, and the losers will still need to figure out how to work together to collect a majority of voters.  In order to broaden the choice of viable candidates, it must be possible to elect people who represent less than 50% of their constituents.

There are a number of ways to approach this (proportional representation being one), but my favorite works like this:  group the voting Districts together so each District will choose 3 Representatives.  Have a single ballot in the General Election for all 3 positions, and give each voter 3 votes to distribute among the candidates.  The top three finishers are seated.  This means that a District that is 51% Republican and 49% Democrat will undoubtedly seat at least one Republican and one Democrat.  The legislature in a divided state will be similarly divided.  You will not be able to gerrymander a District to get 1% more Democratic votes and leave the Republicans out entirely, or vice-versa, because the evenly divided voters will still send at least one of each.  This system essentially solves the Republican maneuver in Texas, for example.

And who will win that third seat?  Will it be a second candidate from the Party that is slightly dominant?  Or will a genuine third-party or Independent candidate have the opportunity to defeat the second-best contender from one of the Major parties?

Other benefits seem likely.  Since candidates will find it possible to be seated with 30% or 40% of the vote, they will not need to spend as much money to reach out.  Less expensive campaigning is more inclusive campaigning.  They will know they have to work with their leading opponent in the Legislature, regardless of whether they win by 2 points or lose by 2 points, so there may be less profit in being nasty to each other.  I suspect there will be more options for female and minority candidates.  None of these outcomes are assured by IRV, which I will repeat, still requires a candidate to reach and win more than 50% of the people in the District, and eliminates the second and third place contenders entirely from political representation.

Obviously, this approach does nothing to change single-seat offices, like Governor or Attorney General.  But it does provide Minor Party candidates the opportunity to serve in the Legislature, gain experience, and get press coverage of their accomplishments, so they can be considered more viable for higher office.  I think this approach is much more likely to open up politics to a broader spectrum of voices, and provide a more representative composition of the Legislature, than any Primary reform or IRV.

It is also worth noting that this reform is independent of reforms to the Primary Election process, which could remain the way Major Parties select which candidates they would like to stand for consideration in the General Election.  The Primary could also potentially be eliminated under such a system, leaving it to the Parties to decide whether they want to coordinate their candidates in the General Election or permit 3 or 4 candidates to split their voters.  Either way, I think a voting system like this is much more likely to fundamentally change electoral politics.

Thank you for considering my comments, those of you who make it this far.  Changes in election law are a ripe field for the "Law of Unintended Consequences".  It is worth considering any tinkering carefully before advocating change.

I look forward to further discussion.

by bobkoerner on Mon Sep 04, 2006 at 12:57:50 AM PST

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...will make dlaw's head explode:

http://replacethepickapartyprimary.blogspot.com/

I'm with Obama

by willisreed on Thu Sep 07, 2006 at 03:39:16 PM PST

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Most of my hokey little website is devoted to ideas for processes and tools to make organizing and participation easier.

I've piddled in politics for decades while having other jobs to keep myself fed & housed &&&, and, in 2004, I put a lot of time into these process and tool ideas cuz I thought:

with the loss of jackass Kerry, after the inexcusable debacles of 2002, 2000 ...

FINALLY the dinosaurs of the Dem party were gonna be swept away.

As I have stated here often, somewhere between the meetings with all my wonderful fellow citizens and who knows where, "the party" takes over and good-bye citizen input, and hello citizen campaign ATM.

Anyway, excepting the web based ideas, the ideas which took a part timer like me some months to put together should have been implemented DECADES ago, IF the Dem party was interested in increasing involvement, NOT just increasing ATM access.

I want open primaries cuz the parties suck, and like ANY organization, at some point the success of the organization becomes more important than the the success of the reasons the organization exists.

Want to know my party affiliation?  It was thug in 1980 so I could vote in the MA primary for GWB Sr. against that f$$$ing lunatic RayGun.  It would have been thug in 90 something when I voted for those whack jobs Craswell and Carlson, especially since the Dems had done such a wonderful job of putting up wonderfully boring wonderfully ineffective Gary Who?

Make the rules so anyone can start a party and get on the ballot at anytime with 5 signatures and 1 dollar, and I'll support closing off the primary for each party to only declared party members.

Continue this decrepit system of Dems and Thugs squashing all newcomers, well

screw your parties and your closed primaries.

the 2 party system is NOT a natural law we have to live with, such as the speed of light or the gravitational constant, the 2 party system is a MAN made monster made for the benefit of those in charge of the parties.

bob the bomb thrower.

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by rmdSeaBos on Thu Aug 24, 2006 at 03:52:26 PM PST

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First, the problem has been an utter, pig-headedness on the part of people in Washington state who will not admit that their system was unconstitutional in the first place. It was. Clearly. No question.

The concept is VERY, VERY simple. Political parties have the right to poll their membership AND NOT PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT MEMBERS in order to select their candidates. This is so basic to freedom of assembly it defies reason that people in this state cannot understand it.

So let's understand this completely: there is a political party. The membership of that party wants to select ONE candidate to run for an office. That party has the Constitutional right to poll its members AND NOT MEMBERS OF ANOTHER PARTY. Without this right to self-associate and poll its members, there is really no point being a party being a party at all.

The idea that it is so odious to declare party affiliation that the best alternative is to make all offices non-partisan and thus render political parties inert is without merit - utterly without merit.

If Washington state voters are so pig-headed and so uninterested in politics that they don't want to participate in a party primary, they need not. They can choose from the candidates the parties present or the independent candidates who garner the required number of signatures and thus get around the primary system.

This entire "issue" is a non-issue which derives from pig-headedness and a lack of understanding of the law and the Constitution.

This is a total waste of time and the Grange should be ashamed of itself for ever getting involved.

by dlaw on Wed Aug 23, 2006 at 11:31:57 PM PST

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It's unconstitutional - end of story.

You're helping the people of Washington state look like a bunch of illiterate hillbillies by helping to encourage them to reinstate a law that should have been declared unconstitutional long before it was.

If you want meaningful voting reform, help promote ways to get more candidates access to the public airwaves.

The 1935 system is a dead, dead, dead issue.

Dead.

Useless.

Dead.

by dlaw on Thu Aug 24, 2006 at 02:09:26 AM PST

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What is IRV and how does it work?

by Pen on Wed Aug 23, 2006 at 10:59:07 PM PST

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