On February 15, the Arizona House Committee on Municipal Oversight and Elections passed HCR 2033. This is a proposed state constitutional amendment that would provide that all qualified political parties shall be permitted to place a nominee on the general election ballot. The vote was 6-4.
If the bill passes, the voters would vote on it. If the voters pass it, that would block any attempt to deprive parties of their ability to nominate candidates, and would therefore prohibit a top-four, top-five, or top-two measure.
And “unqualified” parties and Independents would still have to submit thousands or tens of thousands of signatures to get on that same ballot, and in ballot access lawsuits in Arizona, judges might use this amendment to rule that “unqualified” parties and Independents have no Constitutional right to be on the general election ballot no matter how unequal and overly harsh the ballot access laws are. If I were in Arizona, I’d be voting no on this as while I dislike top two/four systems, I also dislike ballot access laws which further protect the two ruling parties.
No federal or state judge would rule that independent candidates have no constitutional right to be on the general election ballot. We have had many bad court decisions but no court ever said independent candidates have no ballot access rights. The US Supreme Court settled that in Storer v Brown, when it said states must provide procedures both for independent candidates and new parties.
The “Top Four” Jungle Primary system DOES further protect the two ruling parties. Independents and smaller parties need time to get their message out. Top four means the establishment candidates with early money will take up all slots on November ballot. Other messages will die in the cradle.
There should be no primaries, and the number of parties in the general election should be determined by how many have a precinct chair in that precinct who is also physically present on election night.
If I understand that proposal correctly, it wouldn’t necessarily prohibit an open primary, but it would, it least, require that one candidate from any qualified party would have to be in the final election.
There would be no primaries or candidates at all. There would be only a general election, by party. The ballot access would be at the precinct level, by having an active party precinct chair/representative who represents that party to their precinct in between elections and shows up on election night. There’s no need for losing parties to pick would be officeholders (“candidates”) but they can if they want. Whether or how they do that would be up to them.
The winning party would pick its peace officers by whatever means it wishes and replace them at will, again however the party wishes. The position of peace officer is the only one that needs to be filled at all elections. It would combine the duties of law enforcement officer, judge, jury, and executioner in the field. Optionally, they can appoint law revision commissioners. However, laws should be simple, like one printed page, and memorable enough that no one should or credibly could have ignorance of the law, so law revision should rarely if ever happen. How the law applies to any given situation on the ground should be entirely at the discretion of responding officers.
Peace officers would be paid through a poll tax charged to the men who vote on election night (in person, by party). There would be no need for any other taxes. The precinct level would be the only level of government other than the military, for National defense against foreign enemies. The military can be self-governed, with officers rising through the ranks all the way to commander in chief, or commander in chief can be picked through votes of precinct winning parties, but self-selection by the military, say through selection by a council of generals and admirals, makes most sense to me. There’s no need for multiple levels of government, complicated laws to employ legions of lawyers and lobbyists etc, or any of the other current nonsense.
The position of voter/elector would be elite (I have laid out multiple proposed requirements elsewhere in these pages), thus peace officers would be elite as well. Everyone who is not elite would be more akin to a medieval serf or an indentured servant, or in the case of wives and children they would be property of the male head of household much like domestic animals and nonsentient property. Marriages would be business deals between heads of household with the daughter bought and sold to be a wife.