Sunday, May 06, 2012

Primaries and General Elections Concurrent

Sadly, for much of the United States, one party dominates most of the elected offices. So the only real races are in the primaries... and those have really low turnouts. That just reinforces the notions that elections aren't important.

My solution is to hold primaries and general elections at the same time!

Your first vote would be for which party you want to see in power (for that seat: R/D/L/G/X). Then you vote for a specific candidates name for each party! Yes, I think people should be permitted to vote for candidates in all parties. I think a maximum of five per party (maybe more if they have enough signatures) would be more than enough. I think the order listed should be by number of signatures, since, sadly, most voters would just tick off the first one (if any). That's why the first vote is for party, that's all that many voters are aware of. It would look something like this:

Select Favored Party: Whig, Democrat, Republican

Select Favored Whig Candidate: John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler
Select Favored Democrat Candidate: Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, James K. Polk
Select Favored Republican Candidate: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, James A. Garfield



Splitting party and candidate votes means that, if in your heart of hearts you want the Green Party to win, you can still pick the greenest Democrats (and Republican!) and have a significant impact on the election. Or if you like your party, but can't stand the incumbent, you can toss them out but keep the seat.

This could be done with offices with more than one seat, like a state with 10 seats in the House of Representatives. Party seats would be awarded proportionally. If Democrats won 53% of the vote, then the top five vote-getters (rounding down) from their slate would get seated. If Republicans got 39%, then they would still get three, because they didn't break the voting threshold. Third parties, likely Libertarians and Green Party, would get one each. Unfair, you say? Not so! Everyone gets a say in each party primary! And normally, if every district got 53%, then all of the seats would go to Democrats. These days it is nigh impossible for a third party to eek out a plurality in any one area. This way all the Libertarians in a state can vote for their party (perhaps getting enough % in larger states to get a seat or two) AND still select their favored candidates from the major parties. Much more democratic and representative.

1 seat (7 states): Won by party with most votes, obviously.
2 seats (5 states): One for each of the top two parties.
3 seats (5 states): Second seat for top party if >50% (not hard), otherwise 3rd party.
4 seats (3 states): Two for top party (3 if >75%), and 1 each for 2nd and 3rd parties.
5 seats (4 states): Two for top two parties (3 if >60%), 1 for top 3rd party.

That's half the states, with a maximum of 12 (of 64) seats going to 3rd parties. California, with 52 seats would give out one seat per 2%. Several 3rd parties seated, some might get two!. Big ballot though. That's probably about 40 seats total going to 3rd parties, or about 9% (of 435) total. Which, considering all the citizens that are now independents, seems about right.

The effects of this would be hard to anticipate. Candidates from the same party would have to team up and promote the platform (Vote for R, we're conservatives!) while also promoting themselves ahead of each other (I'm the real conservative, not them!).

Party conventions would be much more important, because the platform would be all that they can agree on. And each candidate would try to hold themselves up as the purest example of that model. Or not, depending on the strategy. Blue Republicans and Red Democrats might very well pop up as spoiler candidates (not enough D's to take the seat, so they all pick the same R).

But our current system of picking the popular candidate just because they are popular (in both primaries and the general elections) just seems so shallow. The lesser evils keep winning, and incumbents stay in because they're the devil you know (to mix my metaphors).