Should the Party control its nominee?
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that Washington state will continue to use a primary system that forces voters to choose one party’s primary ballot while it appeals a federal court decision declaring unconstitutional its preferred system, approved with 60 percent of the vote last fall, which permitted primary voters to vote for a Republican in one race and a Democrat in another, with the top vote-getters in each contest proceeding to the general election. Under the system being implemented voters will not have to be a registered party member to choose that party’s ballot.
Last week, US District Judge Thomas Zilly ruled that the Washington “top two” primary system was unconstitutional, violating the political parties’ rights by “(a) allowing any voter, regardless of their affiliation to a party, to choose a party's nominee, and (b) allowing any candidate, regardless of party affiliation or relationship to a party, to self-identify as a member of a political party and to appear on the primary and general election ballots as a candidate for that party.”
TYL has previously called for electoral reform, placing open primaries atop our list of goals for the Centrist Reform Movement. We believe that every American should be allowed to vote for the individual s/he believes best represents him/her regardless of party affiliation or electoral race.
The Washington plan was approved by 60 percent of the state’s electorate and should be allowed to be implemented.
posted by Unknown @ 4:29 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Judge Zilly made the right ruling.
Dissatisfaction with the Democrats and Republicans does not necessarily result in independent or centrist policy status. Everybody has to stand for something, and people of like belief (left, right, up, down, center) all have the right to select their own spokesperson.
An equally viable response to the "duopoly" is a vibrant multiparty system, which the majority of other civilized countries in the world employ.
As can be surmised by the dispute in Washington over election systems, the system itself has normative content. But if the First Amendment is going to mean anything it needs to encourage rather than suppress divergence of political ideas.
Political scientist Maurice Duverger posited in the 1950s that, as a general rule, winner-take-all systems favor two dominent political parties and third parties are, at best, spoilers. While there are exceptions around the world, the proposition is now referred to as a "law" in the United States.
Rather than undermining the first amendment rights of all political parties, which is what a top two system does, the preferred solution is proportional representation.
This is a great postt
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