An initiative to create a top-two system for Florida has started to circulate. Progressive Campaigns is the paid petitioning company that is doing the drive. Here is a newspaper story about the initiative.
Florida initiatives need 60% of the vote in order to take effect.
Supporters of Top Two are using the old Hitler tactic – tell a lie often enough and loud enough and it will come to be believed. Top Two proponents and supporters will never even allude to any of its shortcomings and keep making the same pronouncements of its (supposed) benefits.
Top Two system as I understand it is a step in the right direction for electoral reform.
It helps create the mathematical potential for a three-party system, since the first two candidates to reach 33.33% (plus one vote) are guaranteed to win in the primary, and so a third entity can win in the primary to the “big dance”.
In 2010 and 2014 there was a noticeable difference in candidates who wish to appeal to the whole to reach 33.33% plus one vote (or less when more names are on the ballot). I know, because I personally phone all state-wide candidates in 2010 and 2014 and was able to gauge the differences. In 2014, many Rs and Ds were receptive to unity but in 2010 before Top Two they weren’t at all.
So all the fuss about Top Two has been misdirected by some vocal miscreants who can’t see the improvement from Top Two because they don’t recognize the math.
If 66.66% (plus two votes) are guaranteed to win under Top Two primaries, then how would going back top the days when there was no guarantee and the percent for victory is random but never as high as 66.66% (plus two votes)?
If 66.66% (plus two votes) of all California voters are guaranteed to have their candidates win under Top Two primaries (a percent that gets lowered proportionately with each additional candidate), then how would going back to the days when there was no guarantee and the percent for victory, it is random but never as high as 66.66% (plus two votes), so how would allowing bigger majorities be required to win elections be a bad thing?
In other words, do you want names that can win with 10% of the votes, since ten names with 9% each can lose under the former system, which would allow the winner to win with 10%.
Top Two guarantees a winner in the runoff with 50% (plus one vote) and yet the primary in Top Two still allows for some randomness caused by the “split vote” problem that plurality elections allow in both primary and runoff.
This seems like Top Two an opportunity for unity oriented candidates and a setback for the believers in the biased party bosses who regularly skew the party conventions and internal party rules by squashing fairness and unity.
The party bosses are only for their friends and they make no bones about limiting the speech access for new people with fresh ideas because they want to control their parties’ nomination system from the top down instead of allowing inclusive discussions.
For these reasons, I more than welcome the majority of California voters’ decision to approve Top Two, while the party bosses have lost their influence and are now trying to sue to retain their hold.
Since the party bosses have misguided the membership by continually suing the good people of Top Two, it only makes sense to abandon the current third parties and to find places and avenues to work with those who are for unity who can unite to reach the minimum 33.33% (plus one) needed to advance in Top Two.
James, please name one person whom you believe is a “party boss” in California.
Top Two Primary ought to be labeled as Top Two Tyranny, as the real agenda Is to keep the establishment Democrats and Republicans in power and to squash alternative voices.
Richard, every person currently elected as chair of party or county subsidiary in California. We deem those elections as not democratic which are not RCV in multi-winner elections and that’s unacceptable to us.
James, now that you have said you think every party state chair in California is a “boss”, please describe what power a state party chair has over elections.
“party boss” is a meaningless term, but if you can explain how a party chair (either state or county) exercises power, maybe then you will have convinced me.
To the extent that “party boss” has any meaning at all, I tend to think Charles T. Munger, Jr., is a “Party boss”. He gives millions of dollars to the state and county Republican Parties in California every year. I don’t object to him doing that. But if anyone in California is a “party boss”, he is, because the party won’t want to lose his donations so he has lots of power. And of course he is the biggest and most powerful friend of top-two in the state. He pays for the attorneys who defend top-two in court.
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/philanthropy/25978-the-scion-of-the-conservative-half-of-berkshire-hathaway-charles-t-munger-jr-s-philanthropy.html
Top 2 — a giant distraction from the nonstop ANTI-Democracy minority rule gerrymander systems in the USA —
1/2 or less votes x 1/2 pack/crack gerrymander districts [States even] = 1/4 or less CONTROL.
About 98 percent of the gerrymander areas are de facto ONE party safe seat areas.
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NO primaries.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
We don’t need to single out any particular name, I was merely commenting about the ineptitude of these party boss chairs and the fact that the math for counting votes is destructive and divisive.
All users of first-past-the-post style single-winner plurality and IRV elections are not democratic, not legit and harmful to democratic representative republican governance.
The mathematics of Top Two is a small step away from that trend and into the right direction, IMO. The Top Two system allows us to step away from such party bosses and deals them a solid blow into irrelevance which is better than before Top Two.