On April 6, the San Jose Mercury News endorsed California’s Proposition 14, the top-two election measure. The editorial is here.
The editorial says that Proposition 14 wouldn’t injure minor parties, but the only reason it gives for saying so is that in 1999, Audie Bock, a Green Party member, was elected to the legislature in a special election. However, Audie Bock only got 8% in the first round, placing third. Under Proposition 14, she could not have even run in the second round.
When she was elected in 1999 in the second round, she only won because the blanket primary rules permitted the top vote-getter from each party to advance to the second round.
The editorial also says the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a top-two system. The whole truth is that the U.S. Supreme Court only upheld it on freedom of association grounds on its face. The Court left open the possibility that the top-two system violates freedom of association as applied. The Court also said that it was not deciding whether the system violates its ballot access precedents, or whether it violates trademark law for parties that have trademarked their name. That is why the case against the Washington state top-two is facing a trial in October 2010. On March 9, 2010, the U.S. District Court in Washington emphatically rejected the state’s request that the ballot access and trademark parts of the case be eliminated from the case.
The San Jose Mercury News also endorsed Proposition 62 in 2004. Proposition 62 was another top-two open primary ballot measure, but it was defeated.
It’s frightening that newspapers nowadays editorialize about ballot measures without even inviting both sides to visit their editorial board. In 2004, all the big newspapers invited people from both sides to address them before they made up their mind.
It is possible that Audie Bock would have done better under a Top 2 election system. Even though they could legally vote for Bock in the 1999 special primary, Republicans and Independents might have skipped the primary and then voted for Bock in the special general. Or alternatively some persons who voted for Frank Russo in the primary may have thought him the best opportunity to stop Elihu Harris. In a open special primary, more voters might have voted for Bock.
In 2000, when Bock ran for re-election as an independent, there was one Democrat, one Republican, and one Libertarian on the blanket primary ballot. Bock as an independent candidate was not on the ballot.
Both the Republican and Libertarian candidate received more votes in the March primary than they did in the November general election, even though the total votes cast were up by 52%. There was quite evidently a large number of voters who were simply waiting for Bock to show up.
The federal district judge in Washington has already dismissed the ballot access and trademark issues. Therefore they are irrelevant to the trial in October 2010. The 9th circuit won’t reverse, and the US Supreme Court might not even accept the case on those issues. The district court simply noted that the political parties do retain a legal right to appeal those issues, regardless of their lack of merit.
The district court will rule against Washington on the issue of voting in party officer elections. Washington will agree, and will accept either an injunction to its conducting party officer elections, or restricting such elections to party members only. So there is nothing to appeal here. And Proposition 14 already addresses this issue directly so it is moot for California.
I have been living under the Top Two. Unless you are extra sneaky, 3rd parties are allowed on the primary ballot, and then are expected to be defeated by a combination of either: one Democrat and one Republican, One Democrat and another Democrat or One Republican and another Republican.
#3 In 2006, you received fewer votes in the general election than all 6 Democratic candidates did in the primary. Had that election been conducted under Top 2, the top two Democrats would have been placed in the general where all the voters of the district could have decided who would represent them for the next 10 or so years, until an incumbent retires.
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