On May 21, the Republican Party of Maine filed this 9-page brief in Maine Republican Party v Dunlap, 1:18cv-179. The issue is whether the First Amendment’s Freedom of Association clause gives the party the ability to decide for itself whether it wants to use ranked choice voting in its own primaries or not.
The Republican Party says that whether a party uses ranked choice voting or not can change the outcome of the individual who wins the party’s primary, so it is a fundamental burden on the party to be told that it must used ranked choice voting. But then the brief mentions that in 1860, if Abraham Lincoln had not been the party’s presidential nominee, all of U.S. history would have been different. This is a strange example, because the Republican Party has always nominated its presidential candidates under ranked choice voting, in a sense. All major party presidential conventions in the United States have always held multiple votes until at least one candidate had a majority of the delegates (and the Democratic Party did so until a candidate got two-thirds of the delegate votes, through 1932).
The hearing in the case is Wednesday, May 23, in the afternoon.
If their argument is correct then it would also infringe upon their freedom of association to require them to use first-past-the-post.
The USA is now in a political Chernobyl age of EVIL total idiots — quite ready for Civil WAR II.
The primaries are PUBLIC primaries via PUBLIC laws — nominating PUBLIC candidates for PUBLIC offices.
ALL voters nominating (in top 2 primary States) or SOME voters nominating (in most of the States).
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The SCOTUS MORONS started the INSANITY/perversion in 1968 — Williams v Rhodes — a mere 50 years of hundreds/thousands of moron machinations, moron lawyers and esp moron cases in moron courts.
Makes the old 3 Stooges in movies in 1930s-1950s seem like Einstein genius folks.
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NO primaries.
PR and AppV
The United Coalition loves pure proportional representation (PPR) because we do it right and it helps us to make incremental improvements like no biased political party that exists today.
The United Coalition has been part of the new unity psychology that’s sweeping the globe because PPR works fine.
http://www.allpartysystem.com
@Chris Powell,
The granting of nomination privileges to political parties interferes with free elections. State operation of nominating elections simply makes it worse.
About ZERO odds for the USA to return to the BAD OLDE days before official ballots — gangster bosses in control of caucuses and conventions.
Richard:
Just out of curiosity, how many times have the secondary parties (Constitution, Green & Libertarian) needed more than one ballot to pick their Presidential or Vice Presidential candidates?
Jim,
I don’t disagree with the idea that a group of people acting together shouldn’t get more rights than just one individual in terms of nominating candidates for office. But my point in regard to the contention of the Maine GOP is that if a state does have partisan primaries then there is nothing inherently more protective of freedom of association about first-past-the-post versus ranked choice voting.
Charles Deemer, the Libertarian Party in 2008 took six ballots to nominate Bob Barr for president.
I believe it took four ballots for the Libertarian Party to nominate David Bergland for President in 1984.
It took four ballots to get David Bergland for 1984, three ballots for Michael Badnarik to win in 2004, and six ballots for Bob Barr to beat Mary Ruwart in 2008. Gary Johnson won on the first ballot in 2012 but had to go to a second ballot to get the nomination in 2016.
How many votes/ballots to get 1860 Lincoln ??? —
with the resulting about 750,000 DEAD on both sides in 1861-1865 ???