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California's New Jungle Primary.
« on: 2010-06-10 07:48:03 » |
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While the media focussed mostly on winning and losing candidates, this development in California was largely overlooked, although it will have much greater consequences to the quality of future elections in California. This "open primary" effectively turns the primary system into an election/runoff system, destroys all third parties, encourages little variety of choice as all candidates must now race to the middle from the beginning instead of appealing to party voters first, ensures that all political campaigns are going to cost much much more, and voter turnout will be much lower across the board. If you don't have deep pockets from the beginning you may as well not run for political office in California in the first place. This is a very bad idea. Only millionaire candidates would appreciate this. -Mo
Californians Approve Jungle Primary
by Votemaster, June 9th 2010
Quote:| While all the media attention has been focused on yesterday's primaries, the really big news is that California voters approved a jungle primary for statewide and congressional races starting 2011. In the current system, each party has a closed primary, with only Democrats deciding who should be the Democratic nominee and only Republicans choosing their nominee. In the new system, all candidates for each office will be listed on a single ballot regardless of party (although candidates can list their party affiliation after their names, if they want to). The top two vote getters will advance to the general election, even if both are Democrats or both are Republicans. This change will further weaken the party system and make it easier for wealthy outsiders to make it to the general election ballot. It will also destroy all the small parties, since they will never even be running candidates in November. Supporters of the measure say this change will force candidates to the middle of the political spectrum because an extreme right-wing Republican or an extreme left-wing Democrat will have to worry about campaigning in such a way that it increases the other party's turnout. Jungle primaries are rare outside the South, but California is often a leader in social change. Whether other states follow probably depends on what happens in the first few years with the new system. |
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2010/Senate/Maps/Jun09-s.html#1
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-election-props-20100609,0,7404462.story
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