The San Jose Mercury News has this op-ed by Marcela Miranda-Prieto, advocating that California change its top-two system to a top-five system.
Unfortunately, she says that restoring party nominees to California elections would mean that independent voters could no longer vote in California primaries. This is not true. Restoring party nominees could include a law letting independents choose a partisan primary ballot. Or California could switch to a classic open primary, in which any voter could choose any party’s primary.
NOOOO ROTTED EXTREMIST PRIMARIES
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ONE ELECTION DAY – LESS TORTURE ON VOTERS
EQUAL BALLOT ACCESS
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TOTSOP
Top 5 is better than Top Two but it would still be preferable to restore the previous process in Californis which each qualified party had its own primary and then from this had a candidate who proceeded to the general election ballot and in which independent candidate petitioned their way onto general election ballots.
https://ballotpedia.org/California_2026_ballot_propositions
MERE 14 CA PROPS. — DUE IN PART TO TOTALLY RIGGED MINORITY RULE GERRYMANDER CA LEGISLATURE
HOW MANY ZILLION $$$ FOR/AGST EACH AND TOTAL ???
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I seriously doubt anything will change. Top Two is crap but Top Five (or whatever) is crap as well. Either let parties do their thing OR simply ban political parties. The framers of our republic never gave parties a thought.
PARTIES IN OLDE ENGLAND ESP AFTER 1688 REVOLUTION
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whigs_(British_political_party)
PARTIES IN ALL OLDE BRIT AM COLONIES – PRO KING / ANTI KING — COLONY GUVS
UNDER-REPRESENTATION OF ALL NEWER VOTER AREAS — FOR MANY MANY DECADES
Yeah,if we are going to do the top five then we might as well change it back to the way it was before. The top person in each qualified party moves on to the general election with a write-in option.
Just do standing count. Problem solved.
The first (or primary) election should move to October with election by majority. If no candidate receives a majority, hold a second election in November with a 40% threshold for election. If no winner, have a third election in December with election by plurality.
Casual observer: they called them factions, which they opposed, but participated in. One of the many things they were hypothetical and wrong about. Since government printed ballots, a terrible idea then and much worse now, would not then exist for over another century, the question of whether the factions would be listed on ballots or not was irrelevant to any such discussions or disputes.
Banning parties isn’t going to happen. It wouldn’t be effective if it did happen, since political factions are natural and would happen regardless of official permission. Denying voters the useful information, so long as ballots still exist, of which candidates align with which parties privileges some parties and candidates – those with more resources than others to get this information to a larger percentage of voters – over others.
It also privileges some voters – those with more time and interest than others to study parties, candidates, issues, etc more thoroughly than others, and to remember it accurately – over others.
In other words, it tilts something that’s already tilted without that in an inequitable manner even further in the direction it’s already tilted in, further priveleging those who least need further privilege.
Party listing on ballots is useful information, particularly for voters with relatively little time or interest for elections, relatively bad memory, and parties and candidates with relatively few resources. That is, the voters, candidates and parties least well able to connect to each other otherwise.
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