Primary Voter Turnout at New Lows (FWD)

[New Democracy]

Greetings,

     The solution to this is to combine the primary into the general election.

     I reprint some text which covers this point.

Donald Davison

<H3>50 - Primary:</H3>
There is to be no separate election for a primary. The primary shall take
place inside the general election. All the candidates of the same party are
to be in the race in the general election. The members of the same party
will decide the most favored party candidate when they rank their
choices.<P>

51 <B>Primary - Dropping the Primary Election:</B> My vision of future
election systems does not include the Primary Election. The vote
transferring quality of Choice Voting and Choice Run-Off makes it possible
to stop having the primary election. I call this quality the Primary
Election 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.<P>

     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 there can be no spoiler
candidate. A party has the same chance to elect one of its candidates no
matter how many candidates it has running. Each candidate of the party will
be collecting votes for both himself and the party. The Choice Run-off
method will have all of these votes ending up on the final correct choice
of the people that voted for candidates of this one party. Then it is a
question if these votes are enough to win the election. 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.
In the event a candidate withdraws or dies before the general election, the
party of that candidate should have one or more candidates still on the
ballot that the party supporters can vote for in the general election.
Otherwise, the party would have no candidate on the ballot. The party would
have to depend on write-in votes by the the voters - which is not as
good.<P>
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - end of text on primary - - - - - - - - - - - - -

>Will the election system end up having only election reform folks being the
>voters ???
>-----
>Date:  Mon, Sep 28, 1998 10:31 PM EDT
>From:  SErtelt
>Subj:  CAMPEL-L:  Voter Turnout at New lows (news)
>
>Primary Voter Turnout at New Lows
>
> WASHINGTON (AP) -- Overall voter turnout and turnout by Democratic voters
>plummeted to their lowest mid-term levels during this year's statewide
>election primaries, a new study says.
>
>The study, conducted by the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the
>American Electorate, showed overall citizen mid-term primary voting fell 45
>percent and Democratic turnout dropped 52 percent since 1966.
>
>``What we are witnessing is a progressive meltdown in civic engagement, a
>major danger to American democracy, and the continuing and progressive decline
>in the Democratic Party,'' said Curtis Gans, director of CSAE.
>
>These findings arrive amidst Democratic fears that low November voter turnout,
>caused in part by President Clinton's legal difficulties, could cause them to
>lose even more ground in the Republican-dominated Congress.
>
>Among the findings:
>
>Overall voter turnout of eligible voters in the 36 statewide primaries in
>which both parties had statewide contests fell 10 percent from the last mid-
>term elections in 1994.
>
>Of the 39 states which held statewide Democratic primaries, 20 plummeted to
>new record lows in terms of voter turnout.
>
>Average Republican turnout dropped by nine percent from 1994.


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