Open Primaries: Changing the Face of American Politics

CA TOP TWO

Abel Maldonado at NYCIP Anti-Corruption Awards 2010

• June's primary is a whole new ballgame (Palo Alto Online) What's more, thanks to the California electorate's approval of Proposition 14 in 2010, voters no longer have to cast ballots along party lines in a dozen primary races -- for U.S. Congress, state Legislature and top state officials. Instead, all candidates are eligible to receive a voter's endorsement; the top two vote-getters per race will face a run-off in November's general election.
• Should you vote in the June primary? (By Joann Marmolejo/Looking Forward, Santa Maria Times) This means no longer will a candidate from a particular party be able to sit out the June primary election if there is no opposing candidate from that party. Now all candidates will have to campaign and get enough votes in June to be one of the two top-vote getters, if they want to be one of the candidates on the November ballot.
• The Parties Fear California’s New Open Primary (by Chad Peace, IVN) The irony in all three failed lawsuits is that the parties base their challenges to the Constitutionality of Proposition 14 on the presumption that parties have ‘the right’ to be on the general election ballot.  Even the Libertarian party, the supposed champions of individual rights, join together to argue that a party’s right to be on the general election ballot is greater than an individuals right to have meaningful participation in the political process.

IDAHO REPUB PRIMARY
Why you should not vote in Republican primary (by Larry Grant, Idaho Democratic Party chairman, Idaho Press Tribune) Readers of this column are probably aware that the Press-Tribune editorial board has suggested that Democrats and independent voters should register as Republicans now that the Republican primary is closed and only declared Republicans can vote in it. The editorial board reasoned, in part, that Democrats and independents could thwart extremists in the Republican party, who battled to close the primary, by simply registering as Republicans and voting in the Republican primary anyway. I disagree with their conclusion because it assumes that Democrats and independents have some reason to fix the Republican Party.


California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado received 2010 Anti-Corruption Award from NYC Independence Party. Maldonado, introduced at the event by independentvoting.org president Jackie Salit, was responsible for putting top two open primary initiative Proposition 14 on the ballot in California in 2010.