Reform Electoral Processes to Enhance Voter Expression in Congressional and Presidential Races
Abolish the Electoral College, Establish Approval Voting, Minimize Partisanship and Have Fewer Primaries.
The number of citizens who identify politically as independents is more than twice the number that identify with either of the two major parties. Even as this large and growing number of independents greatly influences the outcome of the election of candidates faultily picked by the parties for the general election ballot, independent voters presently are not being fairly treated or considered in the political process. In some states political parties as private organizations, exercising their freedom of non-association, hold closed primaries to determine their candidates for congressional and presidential races. The parties use public resources to conduct these primaries and officially name candidates to the general election ballot and exclude other candidates, denying politically independent taxpayers an opportunity to vote in this first and arguably most important step at present in the electoral process.
A constitutional amendment should be effected that would, besides abolishing the Electoral College, also preclude political parties from officially choosing any candidate for or preclude any candidate from having his/her name on the general election ballot. The amendment would thus ban partisan primaries as a necessary preliminary step toward general elections but would allow nonpartisan primaries when more than ten candidates qualify to compete in electoral contest for any congressional or presidential elective office. The primaries would be ?Top Ten Approval Plus Grade Jungle Primaries? in that they would employ an approval plus grade voting method and the ballots would make no mention of the candidates? party affiliations or lack thereof.
Until the Electoral College is abolished and a law or amendment is enacted to make public primaries the only kind of primaries that officially names candidates to the general election ballot, a transitional law regarding congressional elections should be enacted. The transitional law should establish the aforementioned Top Ten Approval Plus Grade Jungle Primaries alongside the partisan primaries. The primary ballot should include names of all candidates who have met candidacy requirements. That would include the names of candidates running in partisan primaries and thus some of the ten winning candidates in the public primary would likely include those who also win in partisan primaries.
Consider the case of ratification of a constitutional amendment that would abolish the Electoral College and institute the aforementioned ideas. All partisan and independent candidates for President of the United States would be allowed to compete in the Top Ten Approval Plus Grade Jungle Primary in all states if they meet state requirements for ballot access in states that altogether are entitled to at least 270 Congresspersons and Senators. Results of each state?s primary would not be publicly announced until all primaries have been conducted at which time the raw data from all states would be consolidated and processed to determine the winner nationally.
With the Top Ten Approval Plus Grade voting method voters could opine about as few or as many candidates as they wish to by assigning a grade of A, B, C, D, or F and a grade of A would merit a score of 4, B a score of 3 etc. A voter could assign the same grade to one candidate as to another. If, in a contest for one seat more than 50 percent of the voters assign a grade of A to say two candidates, the candidate with the highest composite score wins. If fewer than 50 percent of voters assign a grade of A to any candidate the search would be made for a candidate who received a grade of A or B from 50 percent of voters and so on until a winner is found.
A constitutional amendment should be effected that would, besides abolishing the Electoral College, also preclude political parties from officially choosing any candidate for or preclude any candidate from having his/her name on the general election ballot. The amendment would thus ban partisan primaries as a necessary preliminary step toward general elections but would allow nonpartisan primaries when more than ten candidates qualify to compete in electoral contest for any congressional or presidential elective office. The primaries would be ?Top Ten Approval Plus Grade Jungle Primaries? in that they would employ an approval plus grade voting method and the ballots would make no mention of the candidates? party affiliations or lack thereof.
Until the Electoral College is abolished and a law or amendment is enacted to make public primaries the only kind of primaries that officially names candidates to the general election ballot, a transitional law regarding congressional elections should be enacted. The transitional law should establish the aforementioned Top Ten Approval Plus Grade Jungle Primaries alongside the partisan primaries. The primary ballot should include names of all candidates who have met candidacy requirements. That would include the names of candidates running in partisan primaries and thus some of the ten winning candidates in the public primary would likely include those who also win in partisan primaries.
Consider the case of ratification of a constitutional amendment that would abolish the Electoral College and institute the aforementioned ideas. All partisan and independent candidates for President of the United States would be allowed to compete in the Top Ten Approval Plus Grade Jungle Primary in all states if they meet state requirements for ballot access in states that altogether are entitled to at least 270 Congresspersons and Senators. Results of each state?s primary would not be publicly announced until all primaries have been conducted at which time the raw data from all states would be consolidated and processed to determine the winner nationally.
With the Top Ten Approval Plus Grade voting method voters could opine about as few or as many candidates as they wish to by assigning a grade of A, B, C, D, or F and a grade of A would merit a score of 4, B a score of 3 etc. A voter could assign the same grade to one candidate as to another. If, in a contest for one seat more than 50 percent of the voters assign a grade of A to say two candidates, the candidate with the highest composite score wins. If fewer than 50 percent of voters assign a grade of A to any candidate the search would be made for a candidate who received a grade of A or B from 50 percent of voters and so on until a winner is found.
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