On January 14, Alaska Representative Max Gruenberg (D-Anchorage) introduced HB 77, to provide for a top-two election system for state office and congress. The bill says that anyone who doesn’t qualify for the general election ballot may file as a declared write-in candidate for the November election, even if that person ran in the primary and didn’t place first or second. The bill also lets candidates choose any party label. The label can be the name of a qualified party, or it can be the name of a “political group.” “Political group” is defined in Alaska law as “a group of organized voters which represents a political program and which does not qualify as a political party.” There are no numerical or organization requirements to be a political group, so in essence a candidate could choose any label, and the label need have no connection with how the candidate is registered to vote.
The bill’s provision for electing a Lieutenant Governor is awkward. Unlike the other top-two states (Louisiana, Washington, and California), Alaska elects a Lieutenant Governor jointly with the Governor in November. However, in the Alaska primary, the offices are voted on separately. HB 77 says the gubernatorial candidate who places first in the primary may choose, as a Lieutenant Governor running mate, either the person who came in first, or the person who came in second, in the primary. Then, the gubernatorial candidate who placed second in the primary must run with the Lieutenant Governor candidate who placed either first or second but who was not chosen by the other gubernatorial candidate. This could force the gubernatorial candidate who had placed second in the primary to run with someone from an opposing party. For example, if in the gubernatorial primary a Republican placed first and a Democrat placed second, but in the Lieutenant Governor primary two Republicans placed first and second, then the Democratic gubernatorial candidate would be forced to run with a Republican Lieutenant Governor candidate.
Political groups are what Alaska calls organizations that are seeking to be recognized as political parties in Alaska, and which Alaska records voter registrations for. Political groups must file by May 31, and must have their bylaws precleared under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. So there are actually significant organizational requirements.
HB 77 also appears to fully equate political parties and political groups for all matters except presidential elections. And for a presidential election, a candidate may file as a candidate of a limited political party.
Under existing law, candidates may file by petition as the candidate of a political group. It appears that HB 77 might impose petition requirements on all candidates. IIUC, candidates seeking party nomination only have to pay a filing fee; while nonpartisan and party group candidates must also file a petition. But HB 77 makes the procedure for filing for the open primary apply to all candidates AND it also makes the petition procedure apply to all candidates.
The election code could probably be simplified a great deal by equating political parties and political groups; requiring a minimum number of registrants when a new political party organizes (50 or 100) to make it worth Alaska’a hassle to track registrants; and make all presidential candidates qualify by petition, but permit party registrants count as part of the petition count. Alaska requires 1% of the last presidential vote to qualify by petition (or gain recognition as a limited political party), which for 2012 would be 3273 signatures. The Green Party, Republican Moderate Party Inc, and Veterans Party, have 2300, 1652, and 2642 registrants as of the first of the month. So under my scheme, they would need to gather between 600 and 1600 additional signatures to have a presidential candidate. Alaska could simply do away with the notion of limited (presidential) parties.
In 2008, the top three gubernatorial candidates were:
Parnell (R) 54K
Walker (R) 36K
Berkowitz (D) 23K
Lt.Governor
Treadwell (R) 53K
Ramras (R) 31K
Benson (D) 28K
So had that been an open primary, and had Benson beaten Ramras. Then, Parnell would have been able to choose between Treadwell and Benson, and left Walker with non-picked candidate.
A simpler procedure would let a gubernatorial candidate designate which lieutenant gubernatorial candidates were acceptable running mates, and then qualify the gubernatorial candidate by Top 2, and pair him with the acceptable Lieutenant Governor candidate who receives the most votes. If there were two Demo-Rep candidates in the general election, it should not be a problem if they both had John C. Calhoun as their running mate.
Of course, I don’t see any particular reason for pairing the two candidates in the first place.
HB 77 adopts the procedure used by Louisiana for overseas voters, where they can rank all candidates in the primary, which is then used for the general election if the candidates are not certified in time.
California should do the same when they move their primary to September.
What is the Stone/Dark age fixation/obsession of having X percent of ALL Electors be able to nominate candidates for PUBLIC offices in general elections ???
Solve for X percent and win the Nobel prize in election math.
P.R. and App. V. = NO primaries.
Nominations ONLY by EQUAL nominating petitions.
This stuff is pre-school math — except for lots of folks with X percent math brains. Solve for X.
This is a TERRIBLE idea! We would be better off with proportional and/or fusion voting. Or to leave it as it is, but rather than publicly funded primaries, the parties could nominate their candidates at convention at their own cost. BTW, here’s an update to some of the facts. For one thing, there is no Moderate Republican Party group in Alaska anymore. There is now an Alaska Constitution Party Political Group. The Mod-Rep registrations should soon be listed under, “Other”. The official sites and forms will reflect these changes soon. The gubernatorial race you cite was in 2010.
#5 Did the recognized political groups just change? The list of political groups shown on the Division of Elections page shows Constitution Party and not Moderate Republicans, but the registration statistics as of 1/3/2011 show the Moderate Republicans, but no Constitution. Alaska no longer shows “Other”, do they get converted to Undeclared?
Yes, 2010 for the gubernatorial race.
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Yes to #6, there has been a change.
Proportional Representation is the answer.
http://www.stoptoptwo.org