Dropping the Primary Election

[New Democracy]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - January 07 1997
Dear list members,

     My vision of future election systems does not include the Primary
Election. The vote reassigning quality of reform methods makes it possible
to stop having the primary election. I call this quality the Primary
Election Feature(This feature also serves as the Run-off Feature). This
feature has the ability to collect all the votes of each voting bloc and
decide the correct selection between several candidates in each bloc and
put all the votes of each bloc on that correct selection of the bloc - the
same function of a primary election - but the Primary Feature will do this
in the general election with all candidates of all the parties mixed
together.

     We should think about not having primary elections because of the low
turnout of voters.  A low number of voters should not be selecting the
candidates for the general election.  That is the main reason for not
having primary elections but there are other reasons.  No primary means no
cross party voting.  No primary means that candidates of the same party can
run against the candidates of other parties and not against each other.
The way it is now a candidate is hurt by members of his own party in the
primary and that damage carrys over to the general election.  I would think
that the political parties would want to take the lead to do away with the
primary election. Money is another reason. Candidates have been known to
spend large amounts of money in the primary fighting with their own party
and then they end up with less money to fight other parties in the general
election.  No primary and most likely no follow up election means less
public expense and less candidate expense.

     The reform election methods will decide most contests in one general
election. The need of a follow up election would be rare - but a follow up
election is better than a primary election because a larger number of
voters will have selected the candidates for the follow up election.

Donald Eric Davison of New Democracy at http://www.mich.com/~donald