Paul Johnson, a leader in the 2012 effort to pass a top-two initiative in Arizona, now is working on a new initiative that would remove party labels from the ballot for all office except President. He hasn’t drafted the measure yet, but already has received $100,000 from the organization called Open Primaries, which is staffed mostly by people who were once active in the New Alliance Party. See this story. One must read almost down to the bottom of the story before learning that the new initiative would remove party labels from the ballot.
One wonders why Johnson ignores far better alternatives, such as using instant runoff voting, or possibly approval voting, in the general election, and simply eliminating the primary. Or he could back an initiative for a blanket primary, which would be constitutional if the law said that its use is voluntary, and parties that don’t want a blanket primary could instead nominate by convention at their own expense.
IRV and Approval Voting are no good. The only voting system being supported by all candidates of all parties (and independents) is pure proportional representation (PR).
PR works the best and nobody has it as good as the USA and International Parliament United Coalition.
It’s like the movie Ground Hog Day here at BAN. Every time an article about voting systems is posted, DemoRep posts how Approval Voting is good and RCV/IRV is bad, and James Ogle posts about how both are bad and a legislature based on percentage of votes by party (like the UK) is the solution. I won’t repeat my position, which frequent readers here (are there any non-frequent readers) already know.
DR and JO: stop posting the same comment over and over and over again. 🙁
Demorep1 hasn’t commented here in several weeks.
Oh no!
Candidates associated with minor parties do better in nonpartisan elections.
When Dianne Feinstein defeated Quentin Kopp in the mayoral runoff, she was said to have found her voice. She might have been elected under IRV, but perhaps without majority support, and just served out the remainder of her term.
Among the 50 most populous nations of the world, the only one with non-partisan elections for its national legislature is Iran. That is not a good example for the U.S.
> IRV and Approval Voting are no good. The only voting system being supported by all candidates of all parties (and independents) is pure proportional representation (PR).
Approval Voting is certainly a very good system. This is clear from decades of analysis and experimentation. The support of candidates of various parties is clearly important, but it’s matter of political viability, not quality.
Beyond that, it’s ludicrous to assert that PR is supported by “all candidates”. Candidates of both parties have consistently blocked legalization of multi-member districts in Congress for instance.
> PR works the best
That is certainly not proven. Experts on both sides of the issue have produced lengthy enumerations of pros and cons to PR, and it’s a contentious subject.
scorevoting.net
Even to the extent PR is superior, it’s not applicable to single-winner elections like mayor, governor, senator, or president. So PR is not a complete answer regardless. An ideal system is to have a PR voting method which is relatively simple, and behaves well in the single-winner case. Single Transferable Vote fails that, as it’s a pretty poor system for single-winner elections (i.e. Instant Runoff Voting).
But there are proportional versions of Score Voting and Approval Voting which behave quite well in the single-winner case—and are massively simpler than STV.
scorevoting.net/RRV.html
Moreover, two-party domination may be so entrenched within the US, that you need break up duopoly *first*, as a *prerequisite* to getting PR. See our case on that.
asitoughttobe.com/2010/07/18/score-voting/
Clay Shentrup
Co-founder, The Center for Election Science
Berkeley, CA
The United States had non-partisan elections for its national legislature for the first century under the constitution.
How many of those 50 most populous nations permit write-in voting for their national legislature?
The United States had partisan elections for Congress starting in its very first election, 1789, according to Ken Martis’ authoritative “The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress 1789-1989.” The 1789 election resulted in 37 Pro-Administration members of the House and 28 Anti-Administration members. In the Senate the tally was 18 Pro-Administration and 6 Anti-Administration.
‘United States Congressional Elections 1788-1997 The Official Results’ by Michael J.Dubin does not show any affiliation.
Are you claiming that the ballot printed by the Virginia Board of Elections for VA-5 read:
James Madison, Pro-Administration [ ]
James Monroe, Anti-Administration [ ]
even before there was an administration to be pro or against?