- IN: Primary systems needs to change (LETTER To the Editor, The Paper of Mongomery County IN)
- LA: House panel says state should hold open primaries for congressional elections (By Ed Anderson, The Times-Picayune)
- LA: Open state primaries proposed (By MARSHA SHULER, Advocate Capitol News Bureau)
- Louisiana Bill to Use “Top-Two” For Congressional Elections Advances (Ballot Access News)
- Notes and quotes from the La. Legislature (The Associated Press, Daily Comet)
- MI: Phil Power: State must rethink primaries (Livingston Daily) Scrap this outdated system and replace it with a fully open primary that selects the top two candidates, regardless of party, to run head to head in November.
- Open the primaries (Pittsburgh Tribune) More than 1 million registered Pennsylvania voters out of 8.4 million shouldn't be barred from voting in May 18's primary just because they're not Republicans or Democrats.
- What’s a Party? (BLOG POST BY JOHN DEETH, Des Moines Register/John Deeth blog) what is a party? The answer is, it’s a bunch of things, semi-public and semi-private. I’ll look at it bottom-up, because I’m a grass roots kind of person. It starts with the people who identify with the party, and the broad set of ideals they more or less share. In many states, like Iowa, that’s a formal thing with a box checked on your voter card. (As we enter primary season, there’s also the crossover issue: should independent voters and voters who identify with the opposite party be able to tell you who your party’s candidates should be?)
- Top-Two Open Primaries: A Gateway to New Solutions in Sacramento (By Gary Toebben, President & CEO of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Fox & Hounds Daily)
- San Jose Mercury News: Vote Yes on Proposition 14 (Merced Sun Star) Voters are fed up with the ineffectiveness of their elected representatives. And yet few realize that our political system perpetuates the dysfunction -- rewarding those who stake out extreme ideological positions rather than encouraging pragmatic solutions to complex problems.
- Republicans' sprint to the right could backfire in general election (By thomas d. elias, Mercury News) Only when all voters can vote in all primaries will candidates need to appeal to the broad middle ground, unrepresented in California for decades as the right wing rules the GOP and a far left/organized labor coalition controls the Democratic Party.
- Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce Opposes Proposition 14 (Ballot Access News)
- Can independents seize the day? (By John Avlon, Special to CNN) Three credible independent candidates are running for governor this year in three New England states where registered independents outnumber Democrats and Republicans.
- Independent Party launches, Cahill on board (By Kyle Cheney, Burlington Union State House News Service) Hoping to harness the energy of disenfranchised Democrats and Republicans and the state’s 2.1 million unenrolled voters – more than half of the Massachusetts electorate – a group of political advocates who reject the two major party platforms hope to soon be able to brandish the label of the Independent Party and use it to carry them to political power.
- All Briefs Now Filed in Colorado Lawsuit Over Independent Candidate Ballot Access (Ballot Access News)
- GOP registered voter share dips - Tough to gauge significance of numbers with unaffiliated voters (BY JAMES CARLSON, Topeka Capital Journal)
- The Public and the Charter (Gotham Gazette/Wonkster) Quotes Harry Kresky and Lenora Fulani on nonpartisan elections
- City Council Speaker at Staten Island meeting: No reason to rush Charter revision (By Tom Wrobleski, SI Advance)
- Surprise sprung by Charter chair; L.I. attorney named to direct panel and Staten Island secession vet tabbed as research director (By Peter N. Spencer, SI Advance) the 60 people in attendance comprised mostly elected officials, representatives of civic groups and members of the Independence Party, who were pressing the panel to explore nonpartisan elections and proportional representation in city government.
- Charter Commission Director Selected (Gotham Gazette)
- Who's Got The Power? Citizens To Weigh In - The first public hearing of the mayor's Charter Revision Commission could be the start of a fast-track effort to change the way New York City governs itself. (By Jarrett Murphy, City Limits) Other reformers want the commission to consider non-partisan elections, which the mayor tried to implement in a 2003 charter revision. Voters rejected that proposal, but passed charter changes that Bloomberg sought in 2002 and 2005.
- Charter Commission Hearing Marked By Low Turnout (By: NY1 News) Fulani on video
- Adam Clayton Powell IV To Announce Rangel Primary Challenge (BY ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Daily News/Daily Politics)
- In Albany, GOP candidate for governor takes on political establishment (By Joseph Spector, Ithaca Journal Albany Bureau) Paladino said he's spoken to Golisano, who he called a friend, and Golisano encouraged him to run on a major-party line. He's planning to spend $10 mil of his own money on the run.
- Party Time -Tea Partiers fit into a recent pattern of conservative populist movements. (By Howard Fineman, Newsweek Web Exclusive)
3 comments:
Nancy, please note the difference between open primaries and top two primaries. Open primaries are where independent voters can vote in party primaries, or where any voter can vote in any primary. Top two primaries - like what's being proposed in CA and LA - eliminate all but two candidates for the general election ballot. It's misleading to label top two primaries "open primaries."
Ross, from the point of view of independents and decline-to-state voters, this is an open primary. As an independent, I support all kinds of open primaries because I think people who don't choose to align themselves with parties should have the right to vote in the first round of voting.
It's not an issue of point of view. It's an issue of being truthful, to put it bluntly. Top two is not the same as open primaries.
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