Newsday, a big newspaper in Long Island, New York, has this article on what is new in the fight over whether fusion should be allowed to continue to exist in New York.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Newsday, a big newspaper in Long Island, New York, has this article on what is new in the fight over whether fusion should be allowed to continue to exist in New York.
Separate individual nominations.
Separate voting box/oval = Fusion
BUT math stuff with PR.
Why not push for a Constitutional amendment allow for electoral fusion in Federal elections?
There is misapprehension about the role of the commission. New York decided to have publicly funding of elections but couldn’t decide how to divvy up the loot. So they appropriated $100 million in the budget and set up the commission which is supposed to define the rules. They are supposed to set the rules for how to handle fusion candidates. That is, how do you stop Daddy Warbucks running as the privately funded nominee of the Demo Rep Party, while he simultaneously runs as the publicly funded nominee of the Grifter Party.
What parties in NY are NOT branches / DIVERSIONS of the LOOT-THE-TAX-SLAVES Party ???
If the commission simply gave campaign finance money to the individual candidates directly, then the entire matter of the fusion parties is irrelevant.
ONE faction loves giving ANY cash to an ENEMY faction — for TV attack ads, etc. ???
NOOOOO election cash schemes.
@WZ,
This is the commission’s charge:
2. The commission shall specifically determine and identify all
details and components reasonably related to administration of a public
financing program, and shall also specifically determine and identify
new election laws in the following areas:
(a) ratio of public matching funds to small contributions;
(b) limits on total receipt of public funds depending on the office
sought by a candidate under the program, including geographic differ-
ences in such limits, if any;
(c) candidate eligibility thresholds for the program;
(d) contribution limits applicable to candidates participating in the
program;
(e) eligible uses of matchable contributions and public funds;
contributions to participating candidates above the matchable portion
shall be governed by election law ยง 14-130;
(f) related conditions of compliance with the program;
(g) an appropriate state agency to oversee administration and enforce-
ment of the program, or recommendation of a new agency if the commission
deems such recommendation appropriate;
(h) resources necessary to administer and enforce the program;
(i) effective date of the program;
(j) rules and definitions governing: candidates’ eligibility for
public financing; political party qualifications; multiple party candi-
date nominations and/or designations; and civil violations of public
financing rules.
I read subsection (j) as being wholly in the context of public campaign financing. Note the placement of colons and semicolons.
In New York a candidate is “designated” to appear on a primary ballot. The candidate then must formally accept the designation. The same is true for nomination. This formality might cause problems for your solution.
If there is funding for primaries, it might be logical to consider them separate campaigns.
standard *reasonably related* weasel words at start.
@ Jim Riley
Those rules leave a lot up to the commission itself. (Too much, in my opinion.) While it does give the commission jurisdiction over financing for “multiple party candidates”, it does NOT give authority to ban them.
Major math chore –
What percent of the incumbent D and R gerrymander hacks in NY [Fed-State-Local] got elected due to marginal fusion votes ???
@WZ,
The legislature could not agree on regulations for public financing of elections, but they could agree to fund them $100 million. So they punted.
If you are an incumbent, you don’t want to make it easy for some other candidate to defeat you. But you might not want to spend so much time fund raising from people who expect favors. It is a challenge to come up with a formula that keeps you in power.
I think we agree that (a) to (i) are clearly components of public campaign financing, so there is no reason to interpret (j) as also being a component. Figuring out if a candidate nominated by several parties is treated as several candidacies is not obvious. Parties might also want to get dome money.
Easy compromise, keep fusion, but only for candidates of ONE party. Any multi-party candidate gets none. Candidates have the option to accept or reject a party’s nomination.
Sorry I meant funding for candidates of ONE party and not for multi-parties