Today is primary day and 3.5 million Flori

Saturday, September 20, 2008

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

INDEPENDENT VOTERS
Report: State electorate is largely discontented (Glendale News Press) While the share of Democratic and Republican voters dropped from 87.1% in 1992 to 76.3% in 2008, independent voters who declined to state a party affiliation rose from 1.3 million in 1992 to 3 million this year.

MEASURE 65
  • Measure 65 debate to offer big names (Statesman Journal) The luncheon will start at 11:30 a.m. Sept. 26 at Mission Mill Museum, 1313 Mill St. SE, Salem
  • A prescription for electoral chaos (by Dan Meek, The Oregonian) Under the measure, any resident can register as, say, a Democrat (up to the 70th day before the primary election) and immediately file as a candidate, with "Registered: Democratic" next to his name on the ballot. That person might be a Nazi, a Communist, a convicted child molester, you name it. Any political party can have its identity stolen in this way by complete strangers who suddenly take the party's name on the primary ballot. [Yikes, Dan -- hide the children, shutter the windows, the boogeyman is here!]
  • Top-two primary voting worked well (Daily Astorian)

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Nancy, you will want to download my op-ed and put it on your servers, because links to articles on The Oregonian go defunct after 14 days.

Note also that Measure 65 will decertify the existence of the Pacific Green, Working Families, Constitution, and Peace parties in Oregon. If you are in favor of having some competition for the Ds and Rs, you should be opposing Measure 65.

Nancy Hanks said...

Dan -- I am part of a national effort to support forms of open primaries in states where independents want to participate. From what I understand, Measure 65 has solid grassroots support. I think your Oregonian op-ed is alarmist. You are advocating for a political party protection plan, which I don't support. The cutting edge issue at stake here is the voters vs. the parties. You are for the parties. I'm for the people and the voters.
-NH

Unknown said...

Measure 65 is not an open primary. Measure 65 is most similar to the Louisiana primary. There is no evidence of any grassroots support for Measure 65. It was put on the ballot via essentially all paid circulators, with the money coming from corporations and corporate executives. Please cite a source for your claim of grassroots support. Thanks.

And, if Measure 65 is so good, why are you not advocating it in your home state?

Nancy Hanks said...

Dan - Thanks for your comment and especially for your questions as to whether I support open primary in my home state of New York.

I think there is quite a bit of grassroots support for Measure 65 -- seems 76% approval according to a recent poll. Why are you tying this to the Louisana primary??

As for whether I am advocating this in my home state, I am proud to say as the recently elected Treasurer of the Queens County Independence Party of the Independence Party of New York, AND a long-time activist for independent politics, I campaigned vigorously for a referendum in 2003 for nonpartisan elections in New York City.

We lost by 30% to 60% bec. the DP controlled union paid labor hit the phones and the streets on election day in spite of a 60% approval rating.

Keep doing what you're doing, but don't confuse that with independent politics!!

Fully 40% of the American electorate considers ourselves independent -- because we don't like PARTIES.

Unfortunately, you are a partisan in NONPARTISAN times...