Jonathan Rauch, a scholar and author who writes frequently for The Atlantic, has this article that says the U.S. might be better off if it had not instituted government-administered primaries. His article covers other topics also, including internal congressional procedures, and campaign finance.
No other country has government-administered primaries and laws that force parties to use primaries. Thanks to the Center for Competitive Politics for the link.
Argentina requires presidential candidates to be nominated by primary.
The first round in Argentina is actually an election, because someone can be elected in the first round if he or she gets 45% of all the votes cast, or gets 40% and is at least 10 percentage points ahead of the 2nd place candidate.
What you are referring to as the first round, was the second round.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_general_election,_2015
I’m referring to the August 9, 2015 first round. I read that same article. Funny how two different sets of eyes read things differently.
NO primaries. See the Clinton and Trump MONSTERS from primary Hell.
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V. — to prevent having Civil WAR II.
“Scioli got the 38.41% of the vote, and nearly 8 percentage points of advantage over Macri; both figures would have placed him near to avoid ballotage in the main elections, but not enough.”
This may have confused you.
In the general election, a candidate needs 45% of the vote outright, or 40% of the vote, with 10% clear, to avoid a runoff (ballotage (balotaje in Spanish)).
The verb tense “would have placed” is correct, indicating a hypothetical event. That is, if Scioli were to receive the same support in the general election as he had in the primary, he would be close to avoiding a runoff. Daniel Scioli had an uncontested primary, so he did indeed receive 38.41% of the total vote. Mauricio Macri’s party had a contested primary, and the three candidates collectively received 30.12% of the total vote, 8.39% fewer than Scioli’s party.
38.41% is close to 40%, and 8.39% is near to 10%. Argentina does not have accurate polling, so the primary is regarded as equivalent.
In the general election on October 25, Scioli received 37.1% vs. 34.2% for Macri, which resulted in a runoff (balotaje). Macri won the the runoff on November 22, 51.3% to 48.7%.
Note that another feature of the Argentinean primary system is that a party needed 1.5% of the vote to qualify its nominee for the general election. Were California to regress to partisan primaries, and adopt the Argentinean system, then any party could qualify for the primary ballot, or they could form an alliance. The threshold would also be applied to legislative elections. In Argentina, which has a population similar to California, legislators are elected by by province-wide constituencies using proportional representation (D’Hondt). In California this might correspond to counties. So a party could qualify in some counties, but not for the statewide governor’s race. The Argentinean legislature has representation from 37 or so parties, with the largest only have 30% support.
Is Rauch brain dead ignorant of the TOTAL corruption by the top robot party hack bosses before the official primaries came along in 1888-1890 — along with the UNEQUAL ballot access laws ???
i.e. vote the party line or get PURGED — no job or worse.