On April 30, the California State University at Northridge (in Los Angeles) Student Association sponsored a debate for candidates running for U.S. House in the 30th district. This is one of the best-known U.S. House races in California this year, because it pits two Democratic incumbent Congressmen against each other, Howard Berman and Brad Sherman. Redistricting forced them to run against each other.
Under the California top-two system, all seven candidates in this race will appear on the June 5 primary ballot. There are three Democrats, three Republicans, and one Green, Michael W. Powelson, a former history professor at this very school and also at LA Valley College. Powelson has a PhD from Columbia University and is endorsed by the Green Party.
The debate organizers determined that they would only invite candidates whom they expected had a chance to place first or second, so they invited the two incumbent Congressmen, and two Republicans. The debate organizers explain their reasoning here. They felt 7 candidates on the stage is too many.
This incident shows that the top-two system cannot give minor party candidates a realistic chance to appear in candidate debates. If the only candidates in the primary season who will be invited to debate are those perceived to be the front-runners, that becomes self-fulfilling. Minor party candidates won’t qualify for the November ballot, nor can they be write-in candidates in November, so they never get a chance for full exposure. UPDATE: see this coverage from IndyBay.
With this type of filtering of candidates opportunity to get their message to the voters, Top Two will not work.
Have a double top-2 election
One column: Republicans and Democrats
Another column: All third party and indy candidates
Top 2 from each race make it to the general election!
My name is James O. Ogle, I’m running for president
with the Libertarian Party so I can try to be elected
vice president on one of twenty presidential candidates
tickets (preferably a women, for gender balance)
and here is my campaign page;
http://usparliament.org/google2012.php
I apologize for so many messages today, just email or call
me if/when you do not wish to be on this email list.
Remember, it IS OK to “reply-all”.
BTW, this email list has been going for about seventeen
years, and it’s usually not this busy (for all you newcomers).
However, we did have two people unsubscribe, and one new person
who just subscribed (self nominee David Charles Tucker Sr [Socialist]),
and we welcome him. All new appointees will be announced on the
June Bulletin.
Thanks everyone for your participation, and please do feel
free to “reply-all”, although try to wait for as long as
possible because of the recent influx of welcomed comments.
Very Truly Yours,
–James Ogle
(415) 686-1996
ONE election.
Equal nominating petitions
P.R.
Much too difficult for the armies of MORONS with all sorts of complex *reforms* — esp. the CA MORONS with the revised gerrymander commission and top 2 – CA version.
#2 – With these 4 candidates, what happens if none get 50% + 1 or will it be the most voters?
Is there any centralized source of party endorsements?
#6, assuming you mean “centralized source where voters can look them up”, the answer is that there are 58 centralized sources, one for each county. Party endorsements are printed in the county voter information guides — even for statewide offices. They are not printed in the statewide voter guide or posted on the Secretary of State’s website.
EXCLUSION OF 3RD PARTY CANDIDATES IS B___S___ AND DEMONSTRATES THE FEUDALISM OF 21ST CENTURY AMERICA
#7 I meant whether someone had collected the endorsements. On at least some of the county websites, the sample ballot is only available online by entering an actual address.
In LA County, the sample ballot for the June election does not appear to be available yet.
#9, not to my knowledge. You could try visiting all 7 party websites (well, 6 since you can assume that Americans Elect didn’t make any endorsements). As you point out, the information isn’t yet available from all of the counties.
Fight the System. Pick a third party and donate some money to em.
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