This story from The Daily Record of Wooster, Ohio, explains that county elections officials are struggling to handle the May 4, 2010 primary, because six parties are participating. Ohio has never before been required to hold primaries for more than four political parties in any one year. The six parties are Democratic, Republican, Constitution, Green, Libertarian, and Socialist. The latter four parties are on the ballot because the 6th circuit struck down Ohio’s requirements for ballot access for new parties in 2006, and the legislature has never passed any new requirements.
A large majority of states provide that newly qualifying parties nominate by convention, not by primary. Ohio doesn’t have that option because Ohio is one of only two states with a state Constitution that requires that all recognized parties nominate by primary.
The county elections officials are struggling because they don’t know how many primary ballots to print for the four smaller parties. Ohio doesn’t ask voters to choose a party on voter registration forms. Any voter is free to ask for the primary ballot of any of the four minor party primary ballots. The problem is that no one has any idea how many voters will ask for one of the minor party primary ballots. Chances are, very few voters will ask for one, but the counties dare not risk printing too few ballots and then running out.
The bills in the Ohio legislature to replace the old ballot access law with a new one have not moved all year, and odds are dimming that the legislature will pass any bill on this subject. The most sensible policy would be to start the process of amending the Ohio Constitution, so that only large parties are required to nominate by primary. However, no one in Ohio government seems motivated to do this, and the proposal would need to be approved by the voters since it involves changing the state Constitution.
Again —
P.R. and nonpartisan A.V. – NO primaries are needed.
I don’t think it should be considered a burden to hold primaries for minor parties. As for the number of ballots, I suppose the state could print about 25% of the ballots that they print for the major parties. That way, they would probably have more than enough ballots for each party.
Or, they could take into account the number of votes received by those parties in determining the number of ballots to be printed for each party. Obviously, if the state knows that a particular race in any of the minor parties could attract a higher number of voters, they could take that into account when determining the number of primary ballots to be printed.
It’s archaic to print ballots which may never be used and try to allocate them efficiently to all polling places.
Actually, it is technologically feasible to print ballots on demand at each polling place at the request of the voter. All the election boards would have to do is supply enough ballot papers and let a smart printer serve up the appropriate ballot. NO waste and loose excess ballots to account for.
We have six parties in California. No problem here. I did not know democracy was such a “burden”. Poor little government worker drones.
Much of the problem has little to do with the number of parties, but rather the complexity of political boundaries.
For example, they mentioned the precinct that had to have 70 ballots. Which is 10 per party (+1 non-partisan). There are parts of 5 school districts in the precinct, and this year 17 YO who will be 18 by November are permitted to vote in the nominating primaries, but not vote for party officers.
So you have:
Socialist + School District 1 (for 17 YO)
Socialist + School District 1 (for 18+ YO)
Socialist + School District 2 (for 17 YO)
Socialist + School District 2 (for 18+ YO)
Socialist + School District 3 (for 17 YO)
Socialist + School District 3 (for 18+ YO)
Socialist + School District 4 (for 17 YO)
Socialist + School District 4 (for 18+ YO)
Socialist + School District 5 (for 17 YO)
Socialist + School District 5 (for 18+ YO)
And a similar set for each of the other parties plus the non-partisan ballots.
If Ohio were to adopt a Top 2 primary, the number of ballots would be reduced to 5, one for each school district.
#4 The head of Contra Costa county elections said at a recent legislative hearing that there is additional cost to handling multiple party primaries, because they have to have smaller press runs.
Mississippi requires that all parties nominate by primary, but I don’t know whether this is mandated by the state Constitution. However, none of our six small parties have ever held a primary, since they have never had more than one candidate running for the same office.
I favor at least giving Mississippi’s small parties the option of nominating by convention. That would surely bring about some exciting intra-party competition.
I keep recalling that the Republicans in one of Virginia’s US House districts are nominating by primary this year, and some of the local elections officials are complaining about the expense.
#3: Your idea about printing ballots on demand is intriguing.
How many, if any, additional personnel would this require?
Indianapolis prints individual ballots on demand at the County Clerk’s office during early voting. You give them your address, and they print out the ballot that you need. Our precincts and wards are complicated with lots of crossover boundaries and exempt towns within a consolidated city/county government. Still it takes about 30 seconds for them to type in your address and print your ballot. On site on demand printing just makes sense.
#8 I voted absentee one time, and the election officials just mimeographed the different contests on different colored sheets of paper, and cut them apart with scissors. I suppose if they wanted them all on a single ballot they could have just used some paste.
Harris County has 100s of ballot styles, and during early voting you can vote at any polling place within the county. Voting is on a DRE but they generate the ballot based on your address, and you can vote in English, Spanish, or Vietnamese.
They must have something similar to print absentee ballots, even if is just used to print a master.
How much FRAUD in printing ballots on demand ???
i.e. comparing the alleged counted votes and the number of alleged voters.
ANY secrecy regarding which party hack ballots go to which persons ???
How about ditching state-sponsored primaries for all political parties? Why should all tax payers have to foot the bill to support the Democratic-Republican electoral farce? Parties should have to organize such procedures themselves.
I don’t know who the other “Gary” from California is, but he took the words right out of my mouth. Most states do not have the same progressive or participatory traditions as California, however. Of course, that could change for California if the abomination known as “Top Two”–Prop. 14–passes.
#10: Doesn’t Texas also allow early voting at such places as supermarkets?
#12: In 1995, the 8th circuit said that, when the state mandates that parties nominate by primary, the parties cannot be required to pay for those primaries (Republican Party of Arkansas v. Faulkner County).
If the state did not require primaries, parties would be very unlikely to hold them, due to the expense. Then the voters would raise hell.
So states will continue to mandate and pay for party primaries.
#14 Some counties locate early voting polling places at supermarkets.
Each entity conducting an election is required to have a main early voting location, which would typically be at the courthouse, city hall, school district office, etc. Counties are also required to have branch voting locations at any place where the county clerk has a branch office. The largest counties must have at least one location per House district, and those of moderate size one per county commissioner district (all counties have 4 commissioners).
There is also the possibility of mobile voting locations that might not be open for the full early voting hours, and some are open for only a few hours on one day during the early voting period.
There are laws that permit counties to restrict voters to groups of early voting locations based on House districts, with no more than 4 groups of locations in the county. This probably dated from the time when punch cards were used. You don’t need a separate punch card for each, but you do have to have a separate template and voting machine. Harris County doesn’t use this provision – and I suspect neither do other counties.
Harris County uses branch courthouses, county libraries, and community centers, for the most part. There is one at a grocery store – but I suspect that is simply because they didn’t identify a more suitable location in that area. Harris County has 37 locations.
Beyond that, a county must maintain some distributional balance between commissioner districts. Just looking around at web sites of the larger counties, I found two that use a lot of grocery stores, but that appears simply to be a matter of style.
There is only one statewide race in the Republican runoff, and none for the Democratic party, so in some counties the runoff is Republican only. This probably has little effect on the early voting locations, since it could be easier to hire election judges to knit, than file for VRA preclearance to change early voting locations.