Colorado Representative Dominick Moreno (D-Commerce City) has introduced HB 1354. Currently, Colorado lets independents vote in party primaries if the independent joins one of the parties on primary day. The bill would allow independent voters to vote in major party primaries without joining any party.
The bill provides that a special primary ballot, containing the names of all primary candidates, would be prepared just for independent voters. An independent voter choosing that ballot could only vote for one candidate per office, but would be free to choose a Democrat for one office or a Republican for another office.
Major parties that object to counting such ballots would be permitted to give up their primary entirely and nominate by convention. The bill would not generally affect small qualified parties, because they almost always nominate by convention. Here is a copy of HB 1354.
“Major parties that object to counting such ballots would be permitted to give up their primary entirely and nominate by convention.” – GREAT. HOPE THIS WORKS!
I think you are misreading the bill. It is a modified pick-a-party primary.
Currently an unaffiliated voter may affiliate with a party on election day, and vote that party’s primary ballot. That is a messy procedure for a mail ballot election, since the affiliation must occur before the mail ballot is sent out.
So if I understand correctly, unaffiliated voters will be permitted to affiliate with a party, or to request a major party ballot. There would be a public record of which ballot the voter received, even if they did not affiliate with the party. Before a mail election, unaffiliated voters would be asked if they wanted to affiliate with a party, or to receive a party ballot.
Non-responding voters would receive an “unaffiliated ballot”, which would contain all candidates of all parties. However, all candidates of each party would be grouped together.
It is not clear whether arrangement by party column and office row would satisfy the grouping requirement, since that might induce a voter to switch between parties. So it might require the ballot to be arranged by columns, without office rows, or perhaps just sequential sections for each party.
In addition if both(all) major parties had uncontested primaries for an office, it would be left off the ballot. This would avoid the situation where a ballot would have for a particular office Debbie Democrat and Ronnie Republican, and a voter might treat it as a general election choice.
The ballot would also contain the notice:
“THE NOTICE MUST CLEARLY AND CONSPICUOUSLY ADVISE ELECTORS THAT ANY PRIMARY BALLOT CONTAINING VOTES FOR A CANDIDATE OF MORE THAN ONE POLITICAL PARTY SHALL NOT BE COUNTED.”
If you read the bill carefully, it says an unaffiliated voter may only vote the ballot of one party. It is somewhat confusing, because the ballot paper for unaffiliated voters would include a virtual ballot for each party.
Colorado qualifies candidates for primary elections by convention, which are held before the primary. There is also a petition process for candidates who don’t receive the threshold level of support at the convention.
This would make it relatively simple for a party to switch to full nomination by convention. Switching to nomination by convention would not require an objection to the counting of votes by unaffiliated voters. It would be entirely at the discretion of the party.
Minor parties may use the same nomination process as major parties, but it is rare for them to have contested races. Under the proposed law, they would also be free to ignore any votes received from the unaffiliated ballot. But they might choose not to do so, since for such a ballot to be valid, it would require the voter to skip all the other races on the ballot.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/262651854/FEC-Filing-by-CES-of-NBCP-4-21-15
NO robot party hack primaries, caucuses and conventions.
EQUAL nominating petitions.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/P60007010/1005625/
How often can a voter move around and vote in multiple primaries in the various States ??? —
i.e. the instant registration stuff.
Just one more part of the agenda of the usual suspects to take over the U.S.A. ??? Duh.
Not the best system for allowing Independents to participate in the entire election process, but it is better than many states, where Independents are totally shut out. Not quite the same of co-nomination, but the results could show how many Independent voters made the difference in the primary results, as well as the General Election results. If this is the best we can get our of the Colorado Legislature, then I say let’s give it a try, and see how it works out.