According to Michael Drucker, the New York State Democratic Committee will meet on Monday, March 4. On the agenda is a resolution that would ask the New York legislature to ban fusion, the practice of letting two parties jointly nominate the same candidate.
It should be up to a party to decide whether or not to accept fusion candidates
Parties are factions/fractions of ALL PUBLIC electors-Voters — NOT independent empires
— regardless of all moron SCOTUS ops.
IMO, every political party is a free association of individuals. Each party should have its own rules for choosing officers and nominating, endorsing or cross-endorsing candidates. If anyone doesn’t like the rules within one’s party, one ought to lobby the party to change its rules, or leave the party. Resort to legislation regulating parties ought to be at a minimum. If a state pays for a primary, any party ought to be able to opt out of the primary and nominate by convention, mail-in voting, e-voting, nominating committee, or whatever internal rule they choose.
Looks like the NY Working Families Party is out of luck; they put their faith in the wrong party, in the so-called Democratic Party instead of themselves, and now they’re going to have a rough couple of years trying to adjust to such a change. A ban on fusion would have little to no effect on the New York Green Party, of course, since not only do they not rely on it, but they’ve made it a point to remain independent of either ruling party. A case of “we told you so.”
@WZ,
If the government keeps track of party membership, and controls the nomination process, it can hardly be considered free association.
@JR
There is no need for the state to keep track of party membership or control the nomination process. These can be done entirely by the parties themselves. There only need for uniform rules as to how the names of candidates get on the ballot. Before the current state printed ballots, political parties themselves printed the ballots and the voters simply used those. Today, with personal computers and printers, there is no reason that voters can’t preprint their own ballots and take them to the polls, even printing in any “write-in” candidates that they would prefer.
@WZ,
The only possible uniform method is that each candidate demonstrate the support of a modicum of the voters (0.1% of the voters in the last gubernatorial election in the area).
A political party or any other group could help in getting these supporters to the courthouse.
Under the old system, voters could bring several ballots and stuff the ballot box. Parties could print fake ballots. If there were 100s of ballot styles, a voter would have to get the correct ballot and put it in the correct ballot box. If you took a party ballot you might get a free lunch of a hard-boiled egg, hunk of bread, and a pint of watered-down beer.
Postcards for nominations —
I nominate etc.
Sig+printed name, address, etc.
—
IF and when internet is 100.0000000 pct secure against domestic and foreign enemies, then internet nominations also.
Each party has the freedom to nominate the candidate(s) of their choice, but if nominated by more than one, the candidate must choose which party they will run under. To have various candidates listed in different multiples of times is undemocratic. Likewise having a party lever gives unfair advantage to party candidates over independents. The next step to a fair ballot is listing candidates in random order.