The Sacramento Bee has this op-ed by Michael Feinstein, criticizing the California top-two system for its restriction of candidacy, and asking at least for some modest changes that would improve it.
The Sacramento Bee has this op-ed by Michael Feinstein, criticizing the California top-two system for its restriction of candidacy, and asking at least for some modest changes that would improve it.
California should switch to primarily a petition system for qualifying, with a fee in lieu of signatures.
For example, qualification might be 1/10 of 1% of the gubernatorial vote in the jurisdiction. For statewide office this would be 7319 signatures. The in lieu of fee could be calculated based on a modest collection rate of 10 minutes per signature at minimum wage. 7319 signatures at 6 per hour would take 1219.6 hours. The fee would be $12,196. As now, candidates could file a mix of signatures and dollars.
While this might seem high, fees for district offices would be much less. For Assembly, the number of signatures would average 92, with a range of 33 to 154; while the fee would average $153, with a range of $55 to $257. It would cost a party the same to have an Assembly candidate in every district, as it does to have a gubernatorial candidate in every district.
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The primary should be moved to September, and it should be possible to win election in the primary, just as it is already possible for county supervisors and other nonpartisan offices. Congressional offices would continue to be Top 2, pending change in the antiquated Reconstruction-era law by Congress. With a September primary, there is no need for write-in candidates in what is essentially a runoff.
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Party qualification should be much easier. California’s implementation of the Top 2 primary violates the 1st Amendment, the California Constitution, and its historical interpretation of the meaning of party affiliation. The numeric requirement affiliation could be quite modest, perhaps 100 registered voters, along with minimal organizational activity (eg rules and bylaws; financial reporting; responsible officers; biennial state convention; and republican form of governance).
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Special elections should be conducted as by-mail elections, using ordinary paper ballots and IRV. Ballots would be counted by citizen tellers.
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Presidential preference elections should use the 2000 format, where all candidates, including independents appeared on a single ballot. Ballots would be premarked with party affiliation. The primary would be a direct primary. It would be up to each party to determine whether cross-over votes would be counted. Any candidate who received 1% of the total vote would also appear on the general election ballot, unless they withdrew.
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Party elections would be by mail only, and occur in the odd-years. Each party would devise its own ballot. Counties would responsible for mailing out ballots, collection, and validation. At that point ballots would be turned over to the parties for counting. A party could contract with counties for counting of ballots.
If a party preferred a convention-based system, the counties would mail notices of the convention, rather than a ballot.