According to this story, Pennsylvania Democratic Senate leaders are still trying to pass a bill that moves the 2024 primary date for all office from April 23 to some other date.
According to this story, Pennsylvania Democratic Senate leaders are still trying to pass a bill that moves the 2024 primary date for all office from April 23 to some other date.
Oy vey . The 0.2% tail wags the dog again. All people are created equal but some are more equal than others.
How many religions have 0.2% or more of US voters? That’s probably a lot of holidays to keep track of.
Would this change the petition signature gathering dates for primary petitions? Would this change the petition signature gathering dates for minor party and independent candidate petitions?
Yes, the date of the primary does change the date of the primary petitioning period. But the primary date has no effect on general election petitions. The general election petitions are due August 1 because of a court ruling in 1984. The legislature has never codified the general election petitioning deadline, so people who don’t know about the 1984 court ruling, and who depend on reading the election code, are mislead. There are seven Pennsylvania ballot access laws that have been held unconstitutional in the last 40 years and for which the legislature has never updated the election code.
Eliminate the partisan primaries. General election in November with contingent runoff in December.
Yes, and let parties figure out their own nominations.
RW — DEMAND $$$$ DAMAGES TO BANKRUPT THE REGIME OF GERRYMANDER OLIGARCHS AND EXEC HACKS
14-2 VIOLATION FOR SPECIFIED OFFICES
Nobody is dumb enough to take AZ legal strategy advice.
Nobody is dumb enough to PAY A-N-Y ATTENTION TO TROLL MORONS —–
ESP WITH THEIR MANY FAKE NAMES AND SUPER- ESP WHEN THEY ARE AGENTS OF THE TYRANT DONKEY / ELEPHANT MONARCHS / OLIGARCHS
—
P-A-T
@CKF,
Let political organization figure out their own endorsements and how to promote them.
AZ at 1157, ironically enough talking about himself whether he realizes it or not. He fits his own description to a T.
Jim Riley
The latter part helps those with greater resources.
Has AZ ever won a case?
Nope
He successfully defended a man accused of masturbating himself in public. The man got off because he was using a prostate vibrator in a dressing room and so no one could actually see him (even though they definitely heard him).
LOL good one mate
Minor party and independent candidate petition signature gathering can start in Pennsylvania the day after the deadline for major party primary petitions, so it looks like moving the primary could impact the start date for minor party and independent candidate petitions.
@CKF,
What if it does?
Concentration of power is generally bad and deprives all but the most lucky or intrepid voters of exposure to new or different ideas. Tilting the playing field in the direction it’s already tilted is contraindicated.
Also there is no if, it does.
@CKF,
How does having a party label on the ballot expose a voter to a new idea?
It’s pretty simple, and you already know this. But for the possible benefit of others.
Smaller parties and their candidates lack the resources to adequately advertise their views, who their candidates are, the rationale for their positions, building support teams of volunteers and donors and future candidates etc, as well as institutional knowledge, name recognition and experience built up over successive election cycles. Having the party name on the ballot greatly helps in this process.
Most voters already have at least some rough idea about the main issue positions of the biggest parties and their best known, most well connected and well financed candidates for top offices. For everyone else, there is a huge hurdle to overcome and a lack of resources to overcome it with.
Voters could of course overcome it on their own, but few do. You could say that this is because they are stupid or lazy, and for some that is true, but for many it is because they are busy with work, family, church, charities, hobbies, health, and numerous other things which demand their attention. Spending a lot of time researching long shot candidates for various offices is not a realistic expectation of the average voter. Party labels on ballots are a useful service not just to smaller parties and long shot candidates but also to voters who are not political junkies/nerds. I say that as someone who happens to be the latter.
What happens if party names are not on the ballot?
Either ballot access barriers are high, and only the leading candidates/parties with lots of money, supporters and name recognition to begin with are on the ballot at all.
Or ballot access barriers are low, and you end up with a whole bunch of names which mean nothing at all to the vast majority of voters who don’t have the time and/or inclination/curiosity to research them, of candidates who don’t have the resources to let anything more than a tiny sliver of voters know anything about them, building nothing for any future election.
This is not theoretical. It already happens. For example in Tennessee. You routinely get laundry lists of meaningless names routinely ignored by voters in elections taking up space on ballots and achieving/building nothing. Sad.
Of course the party name on the ballot is only useful if the party controls who uses their ballot label. Otherwise, it is useless or worse.
LEGIS — PR- PARTISAN
EXECS/JUDICS – NONPARTISAN — NOOO SHORTAGE OF ENDORSEMENTS / NON-ENDORSEMENTS
IE — QUALIFIED / UN-QUALIFIED
No matter how many times you say it, nonpartisan elections are still a bad idea for the reasons explained above.