Changing the Primary System???
The following comment came from the “Live Chat 24/7″ section, and I felt it was worthy of a blog post. Please read it, and comment in the comments section. Have a blessed Sunday all. Mine’s not starting out too well, I’m not feeling well and my oldest child has a high fever and is feeling bad too. Keep some happy thoughts, won’t you? 
Thanks. Now onto the comment:
Ann, you need to start a blog about how to change this horrific primary system. I’ll throw out some thoughts, but there are plenty of smart people on these blogs that can improve my thoughts significantly.
1) The order of the primary states in re-chosen every 4 years by random lottery one year in advance of the actual election. This will keep anomalous states from an inordinate influence of nominees. It will also prevent primary leapfrogging and compression.
2) The primaries go two weeks apart in waves of 5 states every two weeks. This might mitigate the “momentum” factor.
3) No “open” primaries. Your party gets to decide your parties’ candidate. Republicans can only vote in the republican primary, independents in the independent primary only, and democrats the same, green the same, etc. That will prohibit the other parties from gaming the system with crossover voting. If your party does not have a legitimate candidate, then maybe you need to think very hard about why that is.
4) Party voter registration is finalized 3 months in advance. No voting day registration nonsense to also game the system.
5) Delegates are divided up by the same formula in each state. Something like the Founding Fathers’ legislative concepts of a Senate and a House or Representatives. So maybe 50% (or so) of each states delegates are “winner take all,” and the remainder are strictly proportional to the actual vote.
6) Caucusing is out. This is voting by the people. Working people voting at polls, without the caucus day shenanigans (think WV).
Thoughts? Something has to be done, because what we currently have is….”broken.”
February 24th, 2008 at 11:14 am
The primary system is most definitely flawed. I liked the ideas that are brought out in the post. I have had some of the same ideas, but the post certainly fleshed them out even more. I think that the bizarre primary system contributed to us having a nominee that most republicans don’t like. It would be one thing if Mitt was beaten fair and square, but I don’t think he was. Maybe that’s why I’m having a hard time getting over it. I hope your child gets better.
February 24th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Couldn’t agree more. Washington is broken and so is the nomination process. We need to return to the traditional timing of the primaries as well. Have Iowa and New Hampshire as first in the nation, as a way of “taking the voter’s temperature” and then string out the big states throughout the Spring into June. This gives the electorate a chance to get to know the candidates before the voting starts.
Looking back on the process with 20/20 hindsight, I think Mitt’s performance under the circumstances was nothing short of brilliant. To get his name recognition up from single digits to near universal and to place first or second in several of the early primaries was a remarkable feat.
February 24th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I like all of the posted suggestions. The problem however, is that states, not national parties have control of the primary dates, voter registration, caucus vs. primary, delegate allocation, and open or closed. I can’t envision a scenario where the states will allow political party meddling in a state issue. The one area that I think is doable is having a rotating primary schedule. This would help a lot. Perhaps a rule that the one requirement to being first is that your state must have a closed system. That way the initial momentum can’t be influenced by crossover votes.
February 24th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Yeah, the primary system is a total mess and iowa and New Hampshire have way, way, way, way, way, way, too much power.
February 24th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
I think that we should actually work toward all caucuses, and no primaries. You could amend caucus rules so that we don’t have any of this re-voting stuff. Even if a candidate pulls in 0.3%, that one person is allowed to be counted as voting for the candidate of choice. That way we wouldn’t have any WV disasters, and it would help minimize the FL and CA disasters of uninformed people believing what the opponents say in their lying phone calls. People who vote in a caucus are generally dedicated enough to the process to be well informed.
February 24th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
What ever way you do it you have to minimize the effect of the media because they are not our parties friends. Wyoming chose their delegates in August before all the hype voting in January.
If you have an open party you also get people to vote in your party that normally would not have.
February 24th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
There should not be “winner take all states”. Delegates should be awarded based on the percentage of votes a candidate receives.
No Caucus - only voting by the people. No cross over voting - if a person changes their party affiliation during the primaries - they cannot change back again until after the General election.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:21 am
I agree with the comments related to our flawed primary system. I also agree that states have a lot of control over the process. However, it is possible for the national parties to influence decisions at the state level.
I would like to see the Republican Party strip delegates from states that do not adhere to Republican only primaries (no same day party switches as well). I would also like to see a more fair distribution of delegates (the winner-take-all states seem to favor the more liberal candidates). I think that Romney was cheated by our current system.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Interesting proposal with pros and cons.
Well, Independents can and should still vote in either party… BUT they must register 90 days before as either REP or DEM first before they can vote at the primaries/general election.
I must tell you something I have a strong feeling that a lot of people has chosen to become independents after Mitt failed to become the desired nominee. That’s something we need to think about. I thought about becoming Independent myself, but I will follow Mitt’s suit and support GOP in any way I can to ensure that a GOP President will sit at the white house this November.
I disagree about eliminating caucuses for one simple reason. I prefer this way. They must be because it allows people to get real meaty and pure specific information about the candidates rather than depending on MSM stuff to decide who to vote. And the voting at the caucus will happen only once, not three or four times like that one in WV! I found that caucuses were the reason why a greater number of people voted for Mitt in Washington after learning what kind of personality Huckabee really is, a closet liberal and a religious bigot. You can see clearly with the numbers of voters who voted for Mitt even if he was no longer in the race at that time. I spoke with someone who was at the caucus, he said he noticed Huckabee supporters jumping on Mitt or McCain’s bandwagon and the support for Huckabee literally vaporized big time! A lot of them chose Huckabee because they were also evangelical christians, but they did not like what Huckabee had done weeks earlier. SO… see… we should not rule out caucuses completely but need to build stronger rules such as no more WV style caucuses.
I do not like Winner Take All Concept at all! States must have 57% majority before the candidate can win it all period! Delegates should be awarded proportionally with unpledged delegates to decide who they want to go for. We should consider superdelegates for GOP, why not?
Finally, any political or any kind of powerful celebrity endorsement (like Arnold Schwarzenegger) cannot happen a week before voting… they must happen at least 14 to 21 days before, no exceptions!
That’s my two cents!
February 25th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Some of us may not be aware that the Republican Party has considered a few plans to revive its primary system. The one that was the closest to pass was called the “Delaware Plan”. It is where we would start with the smallest states, and work our way up to the largest state. For instance, we would have primaries in 7 smallest states on the same day. Then, we would have a 6 week period before the next small 6 states. After third round, the states would have allocated 49% of the delegates. The remaining 6 largest states have 51%. The thinking behind this plan is that the small-time candidate would have an opportunity to advance to next round by winning at least one smallest state. S/he would then have 6 weeks to raise funds and campaign in the next small states (much cheaper and easier to cover). And the largest states won’t play any role until the last phase (because of their cost and their influence). For example, we saw how NY, AZ and CA has forced Mitt out, because there’s no way to contest in the remaining states being so far behind in the number of delegates. However, these states, because they have 51% of the delegates, will still have as much of the saying as the first state (no more Iowa/NH domino).
February 25th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I personally am for caucus because the primary is not about electing our leaders. It is about who should represent the party, who should be our standard bearer. We have the right to assembly, as such, anyone can form their parties and send those they want to represent them. And I feel very strongly that those who attend the caucus are much more committed to the cause the party is supposedly to represent. They are smart enough to know they cannot win the presidency without appealing to the independents. It is not true vice verse.
And besides, this primary system actually is relatively new. It has been implemented post-WW2 (I think). Before that, we would only elect the electors, and the electors then would decide who should be the president. There was no population vote, nor state by state voting, for the president. That worked very well for over 150 years.