On August 3, the Conservative Party in the British district of Totnes announced the results of its mail ballot open primary to select the party’s nominee for House of Commons in that district. Three candidates ran. Sarah Wollaston received 7,914; Sara Randall Johnson received 5,495; Nick Bye received 3,088.
This is the first time any British political party has used a mail ballot to all voters in the district to choose its nominee. The process cost the party 40,000 pounds. Other political parties have complained that only the Conservative Party could afford such a process. UPDATE: see this opinion piece by a Liberal Democrat activist.
The party leadership approved the nomination of each of the three candidates. Information about each of the three of them was included in the postal ballot mailing.
The State of Oregon continues to survive with ALL mail ballots.
How about stopping potential epidemics due to sick folks at polling places on election days ???
A majority obviously was not required, since the No. 2 and No. 3 finishers combined had more votes than the No. 1 finisher.
In the U. S., 10 states have runoff primaries, all former Confederate states except for Oklahoma and Kentucky. Of these 10 states, North Carolina and Kentucky have a 40% threshold to avoid a runoff, and Kentucky’s runoff provision only applies to the governorship.
Another of the 10 states, Louisiana, only has party primaries for Congress and president.