Defenders of the California “top-two open primary” frequently say that their idea would help minor parties. To bolster this argument, they frequently assert that if “top-two” were in effect, Greens would be likely to place first or second in San Francisco in the first round of a “top-two” election for partisan office.
This idea can be tested. In 1998 and 2000, California used a blanket primary, in which all candidates from all parties ran on a single primary ballot. Then, the top vote-getter from each party qualified for the November ballot. Although this was not the same as “top-two”, the primary ballot for each system is the same. Also, in 2003, California held a special gubernatorial election, at which all candidates appeared on the same ballot (there was no 2nd round in the 2003 special election).
In 1998, inside San Francisco, the vote for Governor in the first round was: Gray Davis, Democrat, 83,565 votes; Jane Harman, Democrat, 40,004 votes; Dan Lungren, Republican, 21,879 votes; Al Checchi, Democrat, 15,027 votes; Dan Hamburg, Green, 10,347 votes. Hamburg was an excellent gubernatorial candidate for the Green Party. He was a former Congressman with an unblemished record for honesty and plain-speaking. He was the only Green Party member running for Governor. But, in the blanket primary within San Francisco, he placed fifth. In order to have placed second, his vote would have needed to be almost four times greater than it was.
In 2000, inside San Francisco, the vote for president in the blanket primary was: Al Gore, Democrat, 96,271; Bill Bradley, Democrat, 36,727; John McCain, Republican, 29,741; George W. Bush, Republican, 19,885; Ralph Nader, Green, 13,127. Even though Nader was at the peak of his popularity with voters in 2000, he only placed fifth inside San Francisco. In order to come in second, he would have needed to almost triple his primary vote.
Also in 2000, in San Francisco, for U.S. Senate, the vote in the blanket primary was: Dianne Feinstein, Democrat, 143,244; Tom Campbell, Republican, 22,283; Medea Benjamin, Green 13,937. Benjamin was very well-known for her activism in peace and feminist groups, and although she did place third, she was far from placing second.
In 2003, for Governor, inside San Francisco, the vote was: Cruz Bustamente, Democrat, 149,237; Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican, 44,665; Peter Camejo, Green, 14,950. Camejo had been invited into all the televised gubernatorial debates that year. He was very well-known because of his impressive showing in the 2002 gubernatorial race, when he had polled 5.3% in the general election. He had a well-funded campaign in 2003. But, he only placed third in the 2003 election within San Francisco, and he would have needed to triple his vote to place second.
One could say that these are statewide races, and that Greens in San Francisco would have a better chance of placing first or second in the first round in a U.S. House race, or a state legislative race. Unfortunately, Greens did not run any members for those offices in San Francisco in 1998, nor in 2000.
People who have not looked at these figures sometimes imagine Greens would polll first or second in a blanket primary in San Francisco, because they observe that Green Party members have been elected to city office in San Francisco. But city elections in San Francisco, and everywhere in California, are non-partisan. Party labels are not printed on the ballot, nor is party affiliation mentioned in the Voters Handbook for city elections. Voters behave differently in the absence of party labels.
So what if Greens finish second? They are just making false arguments. There only goal is to say that we can’t allow minor parties to exist. The top-two system is probably the worst way to exclude minor parties!
*Their
“Voters behave differently in the absence of party labels.”
This also points to IRV being a better system for minor parties. When people see Democrat, Republican, Green they really see “Democrat, Republican, SPOILER.” This is more frequent the closer the race is (or the closer the media makes the race seem, as in the Senate blowout earlier.)
This is Fascism in its pure form.
Every other democratic nation of the planet has ALL PARTIES on the general election ballot. Period. This proposition ELIMINATES party primaries so parties CANNOT select their candidates for a general election.
FASCISM!
A CHANGE in the NOMINATION *system* = a highly likely CHANGE in results.
I.E. ALL prior election systems and results are for the archives — basically useless in making any future predictions.
# 3 ALL voters would be choosing PUBLIC nominees for PUBLIC offices = DEMOCRACY.
So sad for the extremist party hacks.
P.R. and A.V. — NO primaries are needed.
All elections should be non-partisan.
Would you happen to have any links to these “frequent assertions”?
In 1998, there were seven times as many registered Republicans as registered Greens in San Francisco. The Green Party only managed to have candidates for two statewide offices, Governor and Lt. Governor. Even the NLP and Reform party had almost complete slates for the statewide offices. The P&F party had two candidates in many races. In the US Senate race, 7 of 8 the qualified parties had candidates. But not the Greens. There were no Greens for any of the legislative seats in San Francisco.
Defenders of the status quo often appear to believe that voters are complete morons – that voters would not recognize whether or not a primary was contested. But there is absolute evidence that this assumption is not true.
In the June 1998 primary, 140,199 San Francisco voters voted for a Democratic candidate for governor, as Gray Davis won a 3-way race with 57% of the vote statewide, but only 50% in San Francisco.
In the Lt.Governor’s race only 100,748 voted for Democratic candidates, as Cruz Bustamante was easily nominated.
On the Republican side, there were 31,364 votes cast for Republican candidates for governor and 29,675 cast for lieutenant governor, a much smaller dropoff. Dan Lungren was hardly challenged for the gubernatorial nomination (93% statewide), while the contest for the Lt.Governor was wide open (36%-29%-26%). In the senate race, 46,305 votes were cast, undoubtedly drawn to support State Treasurer Matt Fong from Alameda County (he received 65% of the vote in San Francisco, 20% ahead of his statewide performance).
So while there was 17% overall dropoff between the governor and lieutenant governor’s race, there was a 28% drop for Democratic candidates, but only 5% for Republicans. The AIP lieutenant governor candidate received 4.36 times as much support as the AIP candidate for governor; for Libertarians it was 2.99; and for the P&F party 3.77 times as many voters voted in their lieutenant governor race (they had two candidates for both offices).
If we look at all offices, AIP support varied from 228 for governor to 2623 for Attorney General; Libertarians 953 for governor to 4756 for Secretary of State; NLP 435 for governor to 4483 for Insurance Commissioner; P&F 1936 for a contested governor’s race, to 8832 for a contested attorney general race.
For the Greens 10,347 for governor, 10,470 for lieutenant governor, and zero for every other race on the ballot (they even had a declared write-in candidate for Secretary of State who got zero).
Despite the lack of candidates, the vote for Hamburg represented 112% of Green party registration.
Hamburg did outpoll Lundgren in Haight Ashbury, Inner Sunset, Mission, Noe Valley, North and South Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill, Upper Market/Eureka Valley, and Western Addition. In some of these areas it was a 3:1 margin.
But he was badly beaten elsewhere, 2916:319 in West Twin Peaks, 2549:527 in Sunset, 3447:448 in Marina/Pacific Height, 1359:228 in Excelsior.
In Bayview/Hunters Point it was 156:59 for Lundgren. The top 3 Democrats had 3824 votes there (65:1 Democrats to Green). Hamburg even trailed the second place Republican, Dennis Peron.
Perhaps those who frequently make the assertion aren’t referring to the entire city?
In the general election in November 1998, Hamburg only received 5980 votes in San Francisco, 53% of his support in the primary. At the same time, the Lieutenant Governor candidate, Sara Amir, received 25,599 votes, 4.3 times as many as Hamburg, and 75% as many as the Republican candidate for that office. In the primary, she had outpolled every Republican candidate.
In the primary there was simply no reason to vote for an unopposed Green Party candidate, and yet that candidate received more votes than there were registered Green Party voters in the city. In the general election, the votes increased for every party in the gubernatorial election but one, the Green Party where they slumped. Lundgren led Hamburg in every neighborhood, including those where Hamburg had 3 times as many votes in the primary.
Voters were either concerned that Lungren would defeat Gray statewide, or perhaps they didn’t vote for Hamburg because he was from a rural area, but for whatever reason 6 times as many voters voted for Lungren as voted for Hamburg.
Amir did much better, and did finish 2nd among voters in the 13th Assembly district, which lies entirely within the county.
So despite running very few candidates and not having a contested primary, the Green Party gubernatorial candidate received more votes than there were registered Greens in the primary. That a Green Party candidate would receive more votes than the Republicans who enjoyed a 7:1 registration advantage, is likely wishful thinking, even if that hope is asserted frequently.
And despite all these disadvantages, the Lieutenant Governor candidate did finish 2nd in the Assembly district that is entirely within San Francisco.
The frequent assertions I mentioned are mostly oral assertions, made during debates and public discussions about the matter.
In 2000, Green registration had grown somewhat so it was by then 1/6 of Republican registration.
While the Democratic and Republican nominations for President had largely been determined by then, many Green Party voters weighed in. 31.9% of Green registrants voted for Democratic candidates, and 9.8% for Republican candidates. Only 57.5% of Green voters voted for Green candidates in the primary.
This compares to Democrats voting 83.4% for Democrats, 11.4% for Republicans, and 4.6% for Greens; and Republicans voting 85.2% for Republicans, 13.4% for Democrats, and 0.5% for Greens.
AIP voters voted 55.8% for Democrats, 33.5% for Republicans, 6.4% for Greens, and 1.7% for AIP candidates;
Libertarian voters voted 34.1% for Republicans, 28.0% for Democrats, 27.9% for Libertarians and 8.3% for Greens.
So voters were switching into the primaries that they perceived as being competitive. Democratic voters preferred Gore to Bradley by a 2.75 to 1 ratio. But among Green voters who voted for a Democratic candidate (and about 1/3 did so) it was almost a tie. So maybe many Green voters either thought Gore or Bradley was a better candidate than Nader – or they were jumping in on the Democratic primary particularly in support for Bradley.
1 in 10 of Green voters voted for a Republican. Either they thought McCain or Bush to be a better presidential candidate than Nader, or they were trying to influence the Republican primary. Since they voted 17:1 for McCain, it was probably the latter.
This pattern was repeated among Libertarians. One would not expect registered Libertarians to prefer both Republican and Democratic candidates over Libertarian candidates, but in San Francisco they did – or at they at least cast more votes for them.
McCain received almost as many votes from Democrats as he did from Republicans. Only 40.4% of his votes came from Republicans. Bush defeated McCain among San Francisco Republicans, but McCain was preferred by 72:28 among non-Republicans.
Nader has never been seen as the Green candidate, but rather was simply the official nominee of the party in 2000. In 2004, the Green Party chose a candidate who was apparently willing to make deals with the Democratic Party, something that Nader was unwilling to do.
Of Nader’s support in the primary, only 22.0% came from registered Greens; 44.6% came from Democrats, and 29.9% from miscellaneous and DTS voters.
In the Senate primary, it should be remembered that Dianne Feinstein was a former mayor of the city. Overall, San Francisco voters provided 2.7% of statewide votes (San Francisco ranks 10th among the counties in California), but 3.8% of Feinstein’s support. On the Republican side Tom Campbell got 1.3% of his votes from SF voters vs. 0.3% for his opponents for the nomination, Ray Haynes and Bill Horn. The two were credible challengers statewide, but absolute non-factors in San Francicsco.
Medea Benjamin received 14.0% of her statewide vote in San Francisco. While she finished 3rd in San Francisco, she was 7th statewide behind 3 Republicans, 2 Democrats, and the Libertarian candidate. Nonetheless, Green candidates (there were 2) received 2.99 times as many votes as there were Green voters. Under the status quo partisan primary system, at least 2/3 of these voters would have been ineligible to vote for her.
She outpolled Campbell in 4 of 11 supervisor districts (5, 6, 8, and 9) in some cases by as much as a 3:1 margin. But she was drubbed elsewhere (7:1 in supervisor district 2). So those who say that a Green candidate could finish 1st or 2nd, may be considering certain areas of the city. And there may well have been large numbers of voters who voted for the hometown candidate Feinstein, regardless of their political leanings. This would likely be more prevalent among DTS voters and minor parties rather than Republicans (remember that 40% of Green voters voted for Democratic or Republican presidential candidates).
The real test of course would be to look at legislative races. It really doesn’t mean that much to place 2nd in SF in a statewide race. Benjamin outpolled Republican Ray Haynes by a 7.3 to 1 ratio in San Francisco only to trail by 580,000 votes and a 6.8 to 1 ratio statewide.
But as in 1998, the Greens hardly had any legislative candidates in 2000, and none in San Francisco. Statewide they had 4 congressional candidates, no senate candidates, and 4 assembly candidates (8 of 173 races or 4.6%). The Libertarians contested 112 seats (64.7%) and the NLP 75 (43.4%). Even the dying Reform Party had 11 candidates.
So in CD 8 and CD 12: Greens 0.00%. In SD 3 and 8: Greens 0.00%. In AD 12 and 13, Greens 0.00%.
The proximate cause of the Greens failing to finish 1st or 2nd in any legislative race in San Francisco was the simple fact that they had NO candidates, not the use of the blanket primary.
In the 2000 general election, Gore received 1.8 times as many votes as were cast for Democratic candidates in the primary, vs. 1.9 for Nader, but only 1.0 for Bush, which is further evidence of voters switching into the Republican primary.
In the Senate race, Benjamin led Campbell in 4 of 11 supervisor districts. In AD 13, Campbell received but 6% more of the vote, while in the SF portion of AD 12, he had 2.22 times as many votes. The areas where had overwhelming support, tended also to have high turnout. And of course Feinstein may have drawn some hometown votes from Benjamin.
In 2002, California was back to the old partisan primary. By now Republicans only had a 5:1 registration advantage over Greens, but tended to participate in higher numbers. Also because their primaries were uncontested, many Green voters simply skipped the race. In San Francisco, 4680 Greens voted, but only 3763 or 80% voted for Peter Camejo the only candidate for nomination.
Under the blanket primary, Greens received considerable cross-over support. Under the closed partisan primary they received none.
Republican turnout was higher in every single supervisor district (in SD 2 it was 26 times as high as for the Green Party). There were more Republican votes in both SD 2 and 7, as there were Green votes city wide. Medea Benjamin in 2000 received 3.7 times as many votes as Peter Camejo in 2002.
And as now had become standard practice there were only 3 Green assembly candidates and 3 Green congressional candidates, none in San Francisco.
In the general election, Peter Camejo was 2nd in San Francisco, with 1% more votes than the Republican Bill Simon. Camejo had almost 8.9 times as many votes as he did in the primary, clearly demonstrating the vote suppression under the closed primary system.
By 2004, Green registration was more than 1/4 of Republican registration. The Greens did not have a senatorial candidate, and had a presidential candidate who “ran” behind abstention and miscellaneous write-ins in San Francisco, but ahead of Badnarik, Peroutka, and Peltier. His vote total in San Francisco was equivalent to 12.3% of Green registration, and George Bush outpolled him by a 29:1 margin.
A Green candidate did attempt to qualify by write-in for CD 8, but failed.
In 2006, Arnold Schwarzenegger was running for re-election, with Peter Camejo as the Green candidate. Schwarzeneggar received the equivalent of 159% of the Republican registration in San Francisco, and almost 1/2 as much as the Democratic nominee Phil Angelides (Schwarzenegger won by 17% statewide).
But in the US Senate race, Republican Dick Mountjoy only got about 1/4 of the vote of Schwarzenegger in San Francisco, and only led the Green candidate Todd Chretian by 1.6%. Statewide Mountjoy had 20 times as many votes as Chretian.
Chretian received 42% more votes than Mountjoy in AD 13, so naturally the Greens did not contest that seat, but rather the relatively more conservative AD 12, where Chretian had received 43% fewer votes in San Francisco (about 1/8 of the district is in San Mateo County). The Green candidate in AD 13 received 84% as many votes as the Republican.
The Greens also ran a candidate in CD 8, where Chretian had also led Mountjoy.
In 2008, the Green party presidential candidate was Cynthia McKinney who managed to receive only 38,774 votes statewide, even less than Alan Keyes. In San Francisco, John McCain polled 30 times as many votes, and McKinney had fewer votes than Libertarian Bob Barr. McKinney received only 52% of the votes cast in the Green party presidential primary. If your general election vote is only 1/2 of the votes cast in your primary, you are in trouble.
The Green Party ran a candidate in CD 12, which is the relatively more conservative part of San Francisco, plus is 3/4 in San Mateo County. Ralph Nader’s coattails may have had an effect as the Green candidate finished 4th behind the P&F candidate.
Green Party registration increased during the time of the blanket primary into 2004. Votes cast for Green candidates in the blanket primary exceeded Green Party registration, this was especially true during the 2000 presidential election, when Ralph Nader received more votes from Democrats and DTS voters than he did Republican voters.
After two presidential elections with weak Green candidates, and 4 closed primaries, registration has declined from over 15,000 to 9,000. And they have yet to have a candidate in the district where they are most likely to have success.