Study Finds that Effect of Washington State Top-Two Open Primary Law has been to Reduce Number of Democrats who Run for Legislature

Posted on by July 26, 2012
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Two economics professors at Gonzaga University in Spokane have published “The Effect of the Top Two Primary on the Number of Primary Candidates.” It will appear in a future issue of the Social Science Quarterly, journal of the Southwestern Social Science Association. It is already available on-line, but it requires payment. See here for the link to the article on the Wiley Online Library.

The article is by John H. Beck and Kevin E. Henrickson. Comparing the Washington state classic open primaries of 2004 and 2006 with the top-two primaries of 2008 and 2010, the article conclude that the top-two system appears to have caused a reduction in the number of Democrats who run for the Washington state legislature. Each year, there are 123 or 124 regularly-scheduled legislative races in Washington state, and the study uses complex statistical analysis to show that, in the average election year under top-two, 18 to 19 fewer Democrats run for the legislature than if the top-two system did not exist. The evidence in the article is entirely statistical, except for one anecdote, in which the chair of the Democratic Party is quoted as saying, “I, as party chair, have to go and talk people into not participating, and I think that’s really unfortunate.”

The reason party leaders discourage party members from running is that if a major party has too many candidates for a single seat, the party is in some danger that no member will qualify for the November ballot. The article thus provides evidence for the point that top-two open primary systems reduce voter choice in primaries, and enhance the power of “party bosses”. Thanks to Mark Rogalski for news of the article.

U.S. District Court Judge Upholds Florida’s Closed Primaries

Posted on by July 25, 2012
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On July 25, U.S. District Court Judge William Zloch, a Reagan appointee, upheld Florida’s closed primaries. The case is LaCasa v Townsley, 12-22432. Some voters had filed the case, arguing that when the only candidates who qualify to appear on any ballot (primary or general) for a particular race are members of the same party, then that party’s primary, just for that particular race, should be open to all voters.

The decision is 29 pages. The first seventeen pages find that the U.S. Constitution does not require states to let non-members of parties vote in party primaries. The decision notes that the Florida Democratic Party has not said that it wishes to allow all voters to vote in its primaries, even in the circumstances of races in which only Democrats filed to be on the ballot. This part of the decision surveys all the U.S. Supreme Court precedents on who can vote in party primaries, and is more lengthy than might have been expected in a decision that had to be written in a hurry.

The decision finds that the burden on voters is not severe, because if any non-Democratic Party registrant had really wanted to vote in the particular race that prompted this lawsuit (Miami-Dade County State Attorney), he or she could have switched to being a Democrat until July 16. The primary is in August. The last part of the decision discusses the particular Florida state law that says elections like this one should be open if only members of one party are candidates. In this particular election, there are two write-in candidates in November, one of whom is not a Democrat. The decision finds that write-in candidates are candidates, even though the plaintiffs had asserted that they are sham candidates who only filed as write-ins in order to keep the primary from being open to all registered voters.