On February 6, Russian election officials announced that eight candidates will appear on next month’s presidential election. They include incumbent Vladimir Putin, who is the only independent candidate running. The other seven are nominees of various political parties.
In the entire history of the United States, there has never been a presidential election in which more than seven candidates were on the ballot in enough states to be elected. As to the period in U.S. history before there were government-printed ballots, there was never an election in which private ballots were circulated in states containing a majority of the electoral college for more than seven candidates.
Does 8 more than 7 mean that Russia is somehow more *democratic* than the USA ???
At least each Russia voter has ONE *equal* vote for Prez Russia (on paper) ???
Reality may be quite UNEQUAL ??? Duh.
In the most recent election for governor of California, Louisiana, and Washington, there were 15, 9, and 11 candidates, respectively.
15 > 11 > 9 > 7.
therefore
Top 2 > Partisan Primary Nomination.
QED
I believe Richard’s point was about ballot access — more specifically, access to the final round of balloting. In that context, eight is greater than seven (and certainly greater than two).
Russia will have two candidates on the final round of balloting, the same as California, Louisiana, and Washington.
Adoption of Top 2 opens up ballot access by making it the same for all candidates.
Jim Riley, you are wrong when you say Russian presidential elections are the same as California and Washington. The Russian election on March 18 is an election, because someone can be elected on that day. There is a run-off only if no one gets 50%, but polls show Putin will get 70%, so there will be no run-off on April 8.
By contrast, in Washington and California, the primary is not an election because it is legally impossible in those two states to elect someone at the primary. You already know this and in my opinion, it is a character flaw for you to pretend that you don’t know it.
Richard Winger,
I think you know that the United States presidential election system is nothing like that used in Russia. Yet you use the two to compare the number of candidates. You might as well as claim that the United States has 1000s of “actual” candidates. It is like comparing avocados and gerbils. I won’t suggest that this is due to a character flaw. You might be a zealot, but that is not a character flaw.
The number of candidates in Russia may not be related to the possibility that Putin will get 70% of the vote (googling a bit, I discovered that the most reliable pollster in Russia, won’t be polling the race out of concern they might be accused of being a foreign agent.
In France, all popular elections for president under the 5th Republic have had a runoff. The possibility of an election without a runoff is at best a theoretical possibility.
I truly don’t understand why you insist on making a distinction between Top 2, and Open Primary with a possibility of a runoff. Do you really think the main distinction in California between the election for Insurance Commissioner and for Superintendent of Public Instruction is that SPI may be elected without a runoff – and not that one election does not have partisan labels on the ballot?
I scanned through the results for the last gubernatorial election in the other 47 states. In the first phase where all voters may freely participate, only two had as many candidates as Russia, and none as many as California, Louisiana, or Washington.
(2) AL, NM, PA.
(3) CT, GA, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MS, MT, NE, NV, NH, NC, ND, OH, SD, VT, VA, MD.
(4) AK, AZ, AR, DE, HI, OK, UT, WI, WY.
(5) FL, IA, MA, MI, MN, MO, NY, OR, RI, SC, TX, WV.
(6) CO, ID.
(7) NJ, TN.
CA, LA, WA averaged 11.67 candidates in their last election, while the other 47 averaged 3.94.
Again — Definition problems
election — making a choice
A public election may or may not produce a public officer who takes office —
First primaries in some States requiring majority winners (ie some ex-slave States) – with later top 2 runoff primaries
CA top 2 primaries
Most nonpartisan primaries
Also even in some general election regimes — if no majority winner — then runoff general election.