California State Senator Bob Hertzberg was interviewed by the Independent Voters Network recently. He was asked about California’s top-two system. He said, “It’s challenging for me. I like it because people who before were frozen out of the primary system are allowed to participate, although they don’t participate in as high of numbers. But what’s concerning me is how it’s practiced, because it’s now being manipulated all over the place, where Democrats will get involved in Republican races and vice versa in order to manipulate the outcome and it concerns me a little bit. I’ve given it a lot of thought but I think we may need to look at doing our elections another way.”
Hertzberg was formerly Speaker of the Assembly. In the Senate, he is one of five members of the Senate Elections Committee. Thanks to IVN for doing this interview, which can be read in full here.
Although I am very pleased that Senator Hertzberg said what he did, it is unfortunate that he said that independent voters couldn’t participate in primaries before top-two started. In the ten years before top-two was passed, both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party let independent voters vote in all their congressional/state office primaries. People get confused about this because the Republican Party didn’t allow independent voters to vote in their presidential primaries in 2008, 2012, and 2016.
It is good that some of the legislators are beginning to rethink Top Two. Now, if on June 35d, Republicans are shut out of enough statewide offices and Democrats are shut out of enough Congressional elections that they thought they could flip – – then maybe we can get rid of Top Two.
Right conclusion, wrong reasons.
The ‘Top Two’ choke point is the problem. People being able to choose to vote for whomever they wish isn’t – it’s a function of democracy, and the way it absolutely should be.
The problem is that only two people get through, which ensures that non-major party candidates never see the general election ballot in the vast majority of cases. This is patently wrong.
SH is one of the very top EVIL gerrymander OLIGARCH MONSTERS (GOM).
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For new folks —
NO primaries
PR and AppV
In 2006, an independent voter could send a contribution of $100 to a Democratic candidate for Assembly, and a $100 to a Republican candidate for senate. He could put a yard sign for a Libertarian candidate for governor, and block walk for a Green Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor. He could write letters to the editor and otherwise advocate for his favored candidates.
But it was against the law to vote for those he favored.
This LA Times article lays out top-two’s weaknesses and proposes an alternative — a “top-four” primary with ranked-choice voting in the general election. It would seem to alleviate top-two’s problems while retaining its intended benefits.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-gumbel-open-primary-20180518-story.html
Jim Riley, in 2006, any California voter could vote for any candidate he or she wished, in any partisan election, primary or general. California had write-in space back then for all ballots for federal and/or state office. But supporters of top-two took away write-in space in November for congress and state partisan office in 2012.
The obvious remedy in CA Soviet Socialist Republic — CASSR — is the standard USSR type ballot — ONE CASSR party robot hack on ballot.
NO primary to worry about.
Cross out the hack name at your life/death risk.
Wait for 3 AM CASSR secret police wake up call.
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PR and AppV
Those people like national Libertarian Party former chair Mark Hinkle who de-linked and blocked LP candidates for president when their names were made known in 2012 (mine was one) said “Top Two was written and implemented to allow only Ds and Rs”.
That is incorrect. Any candidate garnering 33.33% (plus one vote) when there are three candidates, does not equate to special bias in the math favoring Ds and Rs.
In fact any nominee of any party (or independent) who can attract votes to attain 33.33% (plus one vote) would qualify to advance to a runoff under Top Two. That’s the plan, to break 33.33% (plus one vote). Should there be additional candidates for a total of four or more, then threshold gets randomly lowered with each vote cast.
But there is no bias under the mathematics of Top Two, the majority of Californians approved Top Two, and Top Two will guarantee that the top female and male (or visa versa) can win should 66.66% (plus two vote) of the voters vote for their opposite gender and the alternate genders consecutively thereafter.
With far fewer women as candidates Top Two may be a boon for female candidates over regular plurality voting systems and I deem Top Two to be a small improvement.
Of course pure proportional representation (PPR) is superior to Top Two and the United Coalition has be using PPR for more than 23 consecutive years and PPR works fine.
http://usparliament.org/ss11-unity-platform.php
James, the majority of Californians did not vote for Prop. 14. It received 2,868,945 votes. AT the time, there were 16,977,031 registered voters. Only 16.9% of the registered voters voted for top-two.
Richard, under plurality elections, the 16.9% is considered a majority over the smaller minority faction. Everyone sees that as a victory by a majority and no less.
Please note that a single-winner item to implement Top Two would never have been conducted under United Coalition guidelines because we (the United Coalition) prohibit single-winner yes/no types of votes.
The United Coalition would consider both PPR and Top Two, and should either gain a simple majority then they would be considered approved.
The United Coalition would consider both PPR and Top Two simultaneously as a two-item ballot under RCV.
James, you said “a majority of Californians.” You ought to be big enough to realize you should not have said that. You should have said “a majority of voters who voted on the issue.” There’s a huge difference.
@Richard Winger,
In 2006, that assumes that all candidates had cross-filed in the primary a voter was voting in. ‘US Term Limits’ determined that permitting some candidates to only run as write-in candidates effectively disenfranchised voters.
Segregated partisan primaries disenfranchise voters.
Jim Riley, your first comment said it was “against the law” for a voter to cast a write-in vote for anyone he wished. That is simply not true. Voters were free to physically able to cast a write-in for any person, in any election. Your newer comment changes the subject. The subject is not whether a voter’s write-in would be counted, but whether a voter is free to cast the write-in.