On May 23, backer’s of Oregon’s initiative to establish a “top-two” system submitted 92,000 signatures. They need 82,579. The signatures will now be checked, and if the initiative needs additional signatures, the group has until July 3 to obtain more. Hence, it is extremely likely that the initiative will be on the November 2008 Oregon ballot.
Like similar initiatives in California and Washington in 2004, the Oregon initiative provides that all candidates would appear on the primary ballot, and all voters would get identical primary ballots. Then, only the two vote-getters with the most votes could be on the November ballot. The initiative does not apply to president.
The Oregon initiative provides that the candidate’s registration should be printed on the May ballot. If the candidate is endorsed by any particular ballot-qualified party, that information will also be on the May ballot. However, the only parties that can be mentioned on the ballot are those that meet the definition of “political party”, which is a group that polled 1% of the vote in the last election for a statewide office, or a group with registration of one-half of 1%, or a group that recently submitted a petition of 1.5% of the last gubernatorial vote. The Oregon initiative is therefore much more confining than the Washington state law, in which a candidate can choose any partisan label that is under 17 characters and is not obscene. Under the Oregon initiative, if a candidate is registered as a Socialist, “Socialist” will not be printed on the May ballot, since the Socialist Party is not a qualified party.
More and more gerrymander party hacks in safe seat areas in a state of panic ??? Shed a micro tear for them.
REAL remedy –
Abolish primaries – ONE election day.
Ballot access only by equal nominating petitions.
Proportional Representation – legislative
Approval Voting- executive/judicial
— pending advanced head to head math.
What about independent candidates?
Phil: Independents appear on the first-round ballot with all the other candidates. Independents and small-party candidates, of course, are nearly always eliminated in the first round.
“Top Two” System
Thanks, Steve. What about write-in candidates? Failing that, what about a Revolution (non-violent, of course)? Actually, the latter is needed anyway!
You wouldn’t need a revolution if you could just convince 25% to 30% of the people who consistently don’t vote now to go to the polls and vote for a third party candidate. That would be a “x” heard ’round the world, so to speak. But I guess that would be on a par with a revolution.
If they do not care enough to go to the polls and vote (or vote by mail), then I am not going to put any personal faith in their revolutionary possibilites.
Sorry — A LOT of nonvoters are FUNCTIONAL ILLITERATES — who can NOT read ballots — due to rotted public schools – aka Publik Skools.
People who can not read need to learn how to read.
Phil #4: The law on write-in candidates is, of course, up to each state. I don’t think Louisiana allows write-ins in its “top two.”
Washington state, which will begin using the “top two” this year, will allow write-ins in the second round, as I understand it.
I’m not sure whether the Oregon measure includes a provision for write-ins. RichardW and JimR know more about these details than I do.
Thank you very much, Steve.
Re: write-ins
I didn’t see anything in the Oregon initiative. In a quick glance through Oregon statutes, I didn’t see anything about write-in filing. Oregon doesn’t require W-I to be attributed to individual candidates unless the total number of W-I is enough for someone to be elected or nominated.
Oregon does have a provision that says if a person is apparently elected or nominated by W-I votes that he must make a formal acceptance on a form devised by the Secretary of State. I suppose that the SoS could have a W-I nominee indicate their registration status. I think parties may also make separate endorsements for both the primary and general election under the Top 2 initiative.
Washington permits formal W-I filings, and the SoS Top 2 regulations permit a W-I filer to indicate a party preference, which would appear on the general election ballot if the W-I candidate is in the Top 2. Washington also requires a Top 2 candidate to receive 1% of the vote in the primary to be on the general election ballot, so that if there is only a single candidate on the primary ballot, someone couldn’t get on the general election ballot with just a handful of write-ins, but they could with a somewhat organized campaign.
Washington has sore loser provisions with regard to W-I. Candidates eliminated in the primary, whether on the ballot or as W-I may not file as W-I for the general election. Moreover, W-I votes cast for such persons are not valid in the general election.
Linda Smith from Washington won the Republican nomination to Congress as a W-I candidate in 1994 (under the blanket primary), and went on to be elected in the general election. She was a former legislator, had been involved in several initiative drives, and made considerable effort explaining to voters how to cast a write-in ballot. In addition, an on-ballot candidate for the nomination had informally withdrawn.
The mail-in ballots used in Oregon and Washington may make it easier to cast a write-in ballot, since a voter isn’t rushed, standing up in non-ideal lighting, and has a writing device handy. It may be more difficult to reach voters who vote as soon as they receive their ballot.
Oregon will permit recognition on the ballot of the same parties that it recognizes now (isn’t the Socialist Party a recognized party in one CD in Oregon?)
If I read the initiative correctly, it will also permit fusion endorsements.
Regarding write-ins — see 14th Amdt, Sec. 2 — *right to vote* — *denied* or *in any way abridged* — ignored by the brain dead regimes — especially the party hack Supremes.
Sec. 2 was deemed MUCH more important than Sec. 1 in 1866 — to break the ex-slavery regimes.
When will the U.S.A. gerrymander regime totally implode ???