On April 11, the state of California filed its brief in defense of the top-two system, in Peace & Freedom Party v Weber, n.d., 3:24cv-08308. This is the lawsuit filed last year by some of California’s minor parties, against the system that permits only two candidates for partisan state office and congress in general elections.
On page sixteen the state says the state interest in a top-two system is to “increase voter choice and voter participation by permitting voters to vote in the primary for whichever candidate they prefer regardless of political party affiliation or non-affiliation.” However, most states already have a system in which any voter can vote in any party’s primary without being a member of that party, and yet only two states restrict the general election ballot to just two candidates (Washington and California). This is the fatal flaw in the state’s argument. It is possible to give freedom to any primary voter to vote in the primary of his choice, without a top-two system.
The state’s brief tries to fool readers into thinking there are only two choices, a closed primary or a top-two system. Footnote one says, “A closed partisan primary is one in which each party-affiliated voter votes for the nominee of their party to proceed in the general election. A nonpartisan blanket primary is one in which any voter may vote for any candidate and only the top two vote recipients proceed to the general election.”
Other systems, not mentioned in the state’s brief, are: (1) an open primary, in which there is no such thing as registration by party and any voter can choose any party’s primary ballot; (2) a semi-closed primary, in which the law says any independent is free to vote in any party’s primary; (3) a Louisiana-type system, in which there is no primary and everyone runs in November; (4) an Alaska top-four system; (5) a blanket primary. Although blanket primaries were struck down in California Democratic Party v Jones in 2000, a state could still have a blanket primary if it provided that parties that object to a blanket primary for themselves would be free to nominate by convention.
The state says that another state interest in a top-two system is to “winnow” the choices in November, but the definition of “winnow” does not necessarily mean “just two.” And twelve US Supreme Court decisions on ballot access from 1968 through 1992 make it clear that states cannot restrict the ballot to just Republicans and Democrats. Even the losing cases always make this clear.
The state says the top-two law must be upheld because the State Court of Appeals upheld it in 2015, in Rubin v Bowen. But there are eight instances in history when a court upheld a ballot access restriction, and then a few years later another court invalidated the same law. Sometimes the first court makes errors that are later corrected. Rubin v Panish made some major factual errors. Rubin said that before top-two came into existence, independent voters could not vote in Democratic and Republican congressional/state office primaries, which was not true. Independents could vote in both Democratic and Republican primaries for congress and partisan state office 2002-2010. Also Rubin said the election system should be thought of as a general election in June, with a “run-off” in November. But the Rubin decision did not mention the U.S. Supreme Court decision Love v Foster, a 1997 unanimous decision that said federal law requires all states to hold congressional elections in all districts in November. A run-off, by definition, is only held when the first election failed to choose a winner, but in the case of congressional primaries held at a time earlier than November, no election is actually being held; no one can be elected. So the November election cannot be a “runoff.”
The alternative to all this ballot censorship law and its inevitable litigation is the Liberty Ballot. The Liberty Ballot frees the voter to choose in a General Election by writing in the name of their most preferred candidate AND provides voter verification with an encrypted secret ballot receipt, so the voter can know their own ballot was not tampered with in the tabulation of the final vote totals WITHOUT disclosing for whom that voter voted.
The Liberty Ballot requires no candidate fees, no petition quotas and deadlines, no primary election “winnowing” of choices, and no “sore loser” disqualifications. The Liberty Ballot restores the freedom of choice voters had before the state monopolization of the ballot after 1888 but preserves the secret ballot and ADDS voter verifiability.
The real alternative is standing count.
At some point we should recognize that no third party can succeed in replacing one of the two parties ever given the historical evidence, including the many state politically unaffiliated or independent voters outnumber one or both of the two parties instead joining a third party.
CA regime morons make any comment in THEIR brief about getting a majority approved candidate in each gerrymander district ???
ZERO MENTION ABOUT G MATH 0001 ??? —
1/2 VOTES X 1/2 RIGGED DISTRICTS = 1/4 OR LESS CONTROL.
ALSO ZERO MENTION OF MORE NON-VOTES ??? – MANY VOTERS NOW NOT VOTING FOR ANY D COMMIE / R FASCIST CANDIDATE.
IE ESP IN DD OR RR DISTS
—
NOOO primaries
PR – LEGIS
APPV – NONPARTISAN EXECS/JUDICS
TOTSOP
https://ballotpedia.org/Primaries_in_Louisiana,_2024
CHANGE IN 2026 LA *PRIMARY* SYSTEM
The new Louisiana law doesn’t take effect until 2026, and is likely to amended before then.
California allows election day registration. So any voter may register with any party whose primary in which he/she would like to vote. That voter may reregister back to No Party Preference the next day.
On another issue, discussed above, big money, corporate media, and election laws work to ensure that the alternative parties are frozen out of the political process. Proportional Representation coupled with equal public funding of all ballot qualified candidates would turn the system on its head.
Running horrible candidates is what hurts third parties the most. Public funding is communism, and proportional representation elects communists.
Look at the presidential candidates. Except for Terry, who didn’t really do anything, it was mostly communists. Jill Stein, Chase Oliver, the Mexican chick, all communists who aren’t really different than Harris.
Bob is right.
No country that ever used proportional representation ever elected a fully Communist government. Communists cannot win an absolute majority in any proportional system. Proportional representation is a very good defense against a dictatorial elected government.
I am using “Communist” in the traditional meaning of the word. It means someone who supports Lenin and his ideas. You are probably using “communist” to mean anyone who opposes right-flavored authoritarianism. If I am wrong, you should define “communist”.
Winger obviously has no clue what a communist or authoritarian is. Both are the same, and apply to the Democrats, Green Party, fake libertarians like Chase Oliver and other evil people.
Richard Winger himself is an admitted communist.
Mr. Winger has never called himself a communist and has denied it. On the other hand, his understanding of commies is naive. The vast majority of commies in countries they have not taken over don’t claim it publicly. They call themselves liberal, progressive, etc. Their end goal is exactly the same – government redistribution and control of wealth – but they want to boil the frog slowly. I’d be surprised if Mr Winger hasn’t heard of fabianism. They have burrowed like termites into everything that shapes public opinion , relentlessly softening the ground for their Marxist revolution. 99% of the commie iceberg is below the waterline – until it isn’t
Proportional representation makes government and elections more complicated, therefore is bad. When there’s not one representative of each voter, politicians can point fingers at each other and evade responsibility. Constituent services go down the drain.
Richard Winger has never explained why I can support a candidate by contributing to their campaign; by displaying yard signs, window signs, bumper stickers, buttons, etc.; by block walking in support; by speaking to my neighbors and co-workers; all fundamental exercise of First Amendment political speech – but I could not support that candidate in the most existential way by voting for them, if I happen to support candidates of other parties. If I attempted to vote in the primaries of multiple parties I can be put in prison.
Justice Scalia in California Democratic Party vs. Jones suggested an electoral system such as that used in Washington.
The problem there is voting for individual candidates at all. It’s suboptimal, devolving to voting based on charisma, looks, popularity, false promises, and incumbents effectively bribing voters into reelection with taxpayers money. Simplified voting based on ideas / platforms / programs, with the individuals who will implement them being as interchangeable as any bureaucrat, would be better.