This past June, the voters of this state passed Prop 14, the “open primaries” act that would effectively eliminate all but the top two candidates for the general election. If this law had been in effect this year, it would have changed several results.
(I am assuming that all Green votes and all Peace and Freedom votes would swing to the Democratic candidate, and all Libertarian and American Independent votes would swing to the Republican candidate. I know that’s not necessarily valid, but I’d argue it is a good first order approximation.)
In the Attorney General’s race, the race would still be tight. As of now (9:30 PM Saturday) Cooley has a 20,657 vote lead on Harris. AI & Lib would have added 328,546 to Cooley, Green & PF would have added 322,158 to Harris, increasing Cooley’s lead to 27,045. We’d still be counting votes.
In District 11, the only third part candidate was an American Independent — adding those votes to Harmer would have given him a decisive victory over Jerry McNerney.
In State Assembly District 5, Richard Pan’s margin would have been enhanced had the Peace & Freedom candidate not been on the ballot.
Of course, the real risk of Prop 14 comes in the case of multiple members of a single party advancing, or split races in a single party leading to a minority party advancing.
I generally vote Democratic, but sometimes when there’s a Dem I can’t stand (hello Sen. Feinstein) I’ll vote for the third party candidate instead. If that option isn’t available, I will just not vote for that office. So you should assume that many third-party votes will turn into “none of the above”. Occasionally a tone-deaf Democratic Party professional will tell dissenters in his/her own party that they have nowhere else to go. This isn’t true, of course; there’s a spectrum of participation from volunteering, to contributing, to just voting, to staying home.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Green beating a Republican to 2nd place for some offices in San Francisco or Berkeley.
What short sighted bull. The real effect of Prop 14 is to change the nature of elections in CA. Rather than a system of a primary and a general election, with the possibility of a runoff, we will have a system with a general election and a runoff.
The general election will take place early, but be called a “primary.” It will take place rather early in the election cycle. Most media will tell you that the public does not start paying attention to a November election until after Labor Day. So, the real general election will take place when the general public is not paying very much attention and only the highly motivate party faithful will be voting.
We were told that Prop 14 would produce more centrist candidates and less partisan gridlock in Sacramento. Given the nature of the early election voter, this is not assured. It seems that it may produce votes for those less likely to compromise on wedge issues like “No New Taxes” or LGBT rights.
Also, given that the current election law establishes ballot status for a political party based on it’s performance in the gubernatorial general election, after the next cycle, (2014) there will be no parties with ballot status other than the duopoly. Y’all will get what you wanted.
While many Greens and Peace & Freedom voters do vote Democratic… the reasons most of these people are registered in those parties is because they are disgusted with business as usual and want fundamental change. With the righward lurch of the Democrats nationally, the Greens in particular, if smart and organized will have a lot to gain in the coming years. Peace and Freedom is notorious disorganized and hindered by a lack of staff and money, not to mention a largely graying membership. Peace and Freedom is the only socialist party in the U.S. with an established statewide electoral presence. As meager as its political assets are, it is vital to the political “ecology” for it to remain on the ballot…. any normal country has a vibrant socialist left.
As the liberal Chris Hedges of Truthdig noted, The Country Needs a Few Good Communists.
http://www.truthdig.com/report…
In Democratic leaning open seat districts, there will likely be several candidates running in a contested June ‘Primary’ election. If, as expected, the Republicans are disciplined enough to run only two candidates, they could conceivably win some of those seats due to all the Dems splitting the vote and not making the top two.
This might not work the other way around, because the Reeps are generally more disciplined about that sort of thing.
Additionally, IF two Dems (or two Reeps) make it into the top two for November, they will have to campaign vigorously against each other thereby raising the total costs of running for office. Instead of there being only a contested Primary, we will now have hotly contested primary AND general elections for most seats.
Business interests may give up on Republicans in some districts and try to run a moderate-to-conservative Democratic with Republican support, possibly increasing the chances that a business-moderate would win what would otherwise be a liberal-progressive seat.
It’s ironic that Arnold supports this so-called Open Primary, since a likely result will be to elect a greater percentage of legislators (business moderates) who are not strong supporters of AB 32 and climate action.
I wouldn’t have such a problem if we instituted a ranked-choice voting system for the open primary. If the recent Oakland mayoral race was any indication, it would allow for a more broad base of support for the winner, instead of someone winning with 1/3 of the overall vote.
but if the top two vote-getters are both Democrats, say, is the second-place finisher obliged to run in the runoff? would it be illegal to say, “Naah, I lost, I’m out”?
there is a question of party discipline here, it seems. even if they both have to be on the final ballot, nothing says that they must run big campaigns against each other. presumably in a real primary, one would have won, and the loser would support the winner in the general, yes? so what exactly is the difference?