In 2014, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s organization created the Women’s Equality Party, and petitioned to get it on the ballot for Governor and Lieutenant Governor (but no other offices). The party, of course, nominated Cuomo for Governor as its own nominee.
Although New York has had many parties that were created by one of the two major parties, the Women’s Equality Party, which went off the ballot in November 2018, stands out as one that was unusually passive and never had any significant election activity for any federal or state office. In 2016 and 2018, years in which it had its own primary and was able to nominate for any partisan office, only once did it nominate anyone who hadn’t sought a Democratic or Republican nomination for the same office earlier that year. In 2018 it did nominate Brian Phillips for Assembly, 140th district. He had not sought the nomination of a major party for that office that year. He is therefore unique in the party’s history. The party did not appreciate his candidacy, and on its 2018 web page, where it listed all its other nominees, it did not mention him. The party never polled as much as 6% for any of its nominees for federal or state office. It did have seven nominees for federal or state office in 2018 who were not Democratic nominees, but all seven of them were Democrats who had lost that year’s Democratic primary. One of them was Congressman Joseph Crowley, who refused to drop his Women’s Equality nomination for the general election even though he had lost the Democratic primary to newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In 2018, the party received this share of the vote in districts in which it had nominees: U.S. House .96%; State Senate .96%; Assembly .96% (it’s just a coincidence that the percentage is the same for all three types of office). For statewide office, it polled .45% for Governor, .59% for Comptroller, and .69% for U.S. Senate.
In 2016, it had polled 1.27% in the districts it contested for U.S. House; 1.11% for State Senate; and 1.19% for Assembly. While it was on the ballot, it never contested any State Supreme Court races. It was the only “fusion” party in the state to skip those races. Also in 2016, it had polled .47% for Hillary Clinton for President. In 2014, the year it had gained party status, it had polled 1.41% for Andrew Cuomo for Governor.
New York has a bizarre system where political parties qualify – and then organize, and then elect executive committees. Several groups tried to take over the WEQ line, who were hampered by the fact that no politically active Democrat was willing to drop their enrollment in that party.
It is relatively easy to take over a shell party in New York since executive committees are elected. Curtis Sliwa’s group did that with the Reform Party.
It is also easy to gain the nomination of a shell party. Petitioning for a party designation requires 5% of enrollment in a district. Bruno needed two signatures from WEQ members in his district. 2 of 24 voters is 8.33%.
Conceivably the SAM party could also be taken over.
New York should eliminate partisan nomination, and instead require a candidate to demonstrate the support of 0.1% of the gubernatorial vote (about 6100 based on the 2018 eldction). Elections should either be Top 2 or general with a conditional runoff. Ballots should be office block.
Political parties could distribute lists of suggested candidates.
General with a conditional runoff would make things better, unlike top two.
Men, there are three Green and two, possibly three Libertarians, whom have filed or announced their candidacy and NY is resident to Jennifer Walters [Green] (Marvel actress, AKA She-Hulk).
Us man will have many women to bring a #1 vote, the best males for VP too, and we need not worry about the split vote among women, because there are too few POTUS candidates who are women.
The Herd/Ogle [Libertarian/One] 2020 is trying to bring the pure proportional representation (PPR) Electoral College now, to make the Libertarian Party’s selection for POTUS and Vice POTUS a three-party system within the Libertarian Party in 2020.
ll parties and independents may join the Libertarian Party now, and remain registered any party you wish, help us quadruple the dues payers in the Libertarian and we may remain registered to vote in Green Party (or any party/independent).
@ARJ,
Why do you believe that Louisiana elections are materially better than Washington elections?
To clarify, there are five or six candidates for US President who are women, from the Green and Libertarian Parties alone.
Fusion minor party stunt ego hack machinations – Cuomo WEP example.
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ONE election Day.
PR Legis and NONPARTISAN AppV – Exec/Judic
TOTAL Separation of Powers
As a reminder, in 1996 I had filed Form 2 with FEC as a candidate for US President, and I categorized myself on the Form 2 with the Free Parliamentary Party. We have been bringing the correct math, Droop Quota, to the Internet since 1992, the Santa Cruz California City Council election. We were popularizing the Tea Parties in Usenet worldwide, the same tea parties that Sue Hutchinson brought with Reagan and Clint against our team, in the Carmel City Council election of 1986.
Anyone can verify with the FEC of my filing.
In October of 1997, Sergie Brin founded Google after joining my conversation and asked about my logo/email address joogle.
Immediately after Brin registered his domain google, Cameron Spitzer, my psersonal harrasser (along with Gary Swing of Colorado) and internet coordinator for the California Green Party, he emailed Brin, and requested that he turn all search traffic to do with the words parliamentary, proportional representation (and?) away from my name James Ogle.
Swing and Spitzer were two of about 4 or 5 Green Party bosses bullying me in 1994 to present and that was before interent bullying was recognized as a civil issue, they didn’t like the fact that Igor Chudov [Libertarian] and the United Coalition and hundreds of others liked the project. More than 350 people voted on our project using ranked choice voting online and Harry Browne won the First Internet Presferencial Ballot Presidential Election of 1994 (125 candidates for POTUS had been nominated).
Spitzer had boasted about his work against mine in public, the Usenet (now google groups).
Little did we know, the parliamentary groups founded after 1997 which don’t use PPR, then reaped benefits of the goofle searches.
The guidelines of most parliamentary businesses established after 1997 (LP?) likely do not use pure proportional representation.
So these groups promote bylaws with 2/3rds and 7/8th thresholds because their guidelines are written to protct the bosses who bring the parliamentary proceedure and to protect their power from the simple majority 50% (plus one vote).
I am very skeptical of any Roberts Rules, they likely are anti-simple majority rule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%27s_Rules_of_Order
2019 ain’t 1876 — with days and days to waste in meetings.
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PR and AppV
See USA House Reps tyrant rules — for action — esp statist control freak action.
@joogle,
Is Cameron Spitzer related to Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York?
Possibly by internet spin, the Spitzer in NY may have capitalized, but I doubt they are related by blood. I’ve seen a lot of spin from our team still seeing it.
You can’t always prove it, but like Google One, sometimes we suspect that their may be a connections.
Jim,
Louisiana elections have a runoff, if needed, after the vote on the day that the largest number of people participate. In places like California and Washington with the awful top-two system a primary with a much smaller number of people participating are deciding who will be available for the general election when the largest number of people participate. Top-two allows a small group of voters, most of whom are partisans of one sort or another, to decide the choices for the majority. This disenfranchises any general election voter who would have preferred any candidate outside of the top two choices of a hyper-partisan minority.
Top Two = Single winner (two-party system)
PPR Electoral College = 538 winners (539-party system)
@CP,
why can’t a law be passed that permits parties to encourage voters to vote? Maybe they don’t know about the 1sr Amendment? Washington sends a primary ballot to every registered voter.
Conditional runoff is vastly better. It means that the election in which more than the top two participate is a real election, which can actually elect someone and place them in office, and there may not be another round if someone wins outright, giving voters a rational reason to pay attention to and vote in that election. Most voters can rationally be forgiven for letting the political junkies winnow the choices for them. And, primaries typically happen earlier in the year when most voters are not paying attention yet. What’s more, with a conditional runoff like Georgia has, parties can still nominate by convention so the party label does not become meaningless because anyone can choose to run on any label they want.
With a top two only system, a crowded field eliminates non-duopoly choices earlier in the year when few voters are paying attention, except in heavily lopsided districts where only one of the duopoly parties even bothers to run anyone at all. Even in those districts the media ignore the non-duopoly candidate with no practical chance of winning. And on top of all that the ballot label ceases to have any real power to inform voters, so only parties with a lot of money for mass advertising can have some control of their ballot label and what it tells voters about their candidates. Likewise candidates who don’t have a lot of money or celebrity can’t use their ballot label to communicate much because all those non-duopoly ballot labels become meaningless.
A conditional runoff, on the other hand, is an improvement over a plurality election, because voters are more free to vote for their first choice, knowing they can vote for the lesser evil later if they have to. It can be an instant runoff or a second round if no one wins the first round outright. Either way an improvement over plurality elections, unlike top two only, which actually is making things a lot worse.
@ARJ,
Experience from the California blanket primary shows that there is little difference between the primary and general election. It is not political junkies who vote in the primary, it is the more civically engaged.
There is no reason to have partisan nominations. If a group of indiduals wants to support a candidate, they can.
Jesse Ventura and Angus King were not elected because of the party label. If they had, there would have been Reform legislators in Minnesota.
PR — party labels will mean something
— see foreign pr regimes – esp Israel, Germany, New Zealand
— but have FATAL defective *parliamentary* regimes
— top hacks having legis and exec powers.
TOTAL Separation of Powers.
See Montesquieu 1748 – Spirit of the Laws [French orig]
— 1 of the major political works in Western Civilization.
NOW – STONE AGE BARBARIAN mixing of powers — See barbarian tyrant Trump at work.
Jim, the voters of Minnesota did elect a Reform Party legislator, Sheila Kiskaden from Rochester, in 2002. By then the party name was back to “Independence.”
Sheila Kiscaden (note only one ‘k’) had been elected as a Republican from 1992-2002 (3 elections). In 2002, she failed to gain to gain the endorsement of the Republican convention and ran in the Independence primary.
An oddity, is that under Minnesota’s system of anonymous party affiliation, voters choose their primary ballot in secret. The Independence primary for state senator had more votes cast than either the Republican or DFL primaries. This means that voters skipped the DFL and Republican races for governor and senator, which were contested, though not particularly competitive, to vote in a legislative race for a minor part.
Kiscaden narrowly won the general election, in which the Democrat was squeezed. She would have been easily re-elected under Top 2. She might have got a slight coattails effect from Tim Penny, who was the Independence candidate for governor, and had been congressman for the area.
Kiscaden caucused with the Republicans in the legislature, until they kicked her out. She then joined the DFL caucus. In 2006 she was a short-lived candidate for Lieutenant Governor for the DFL nomination.
She now is a county commissioner in Olmsted County (Rochester). This is a non-partisan position.
PR — lots more minor party legislators — at EVERY election.