Today is primary day and 3.5 million Flori

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Can Open Primaries Fix the Two Party System?

INDEPENDENT VOTERS
  • Democrats, prepare for independents' day (By John P. Avlon, CNN Contributor) They determine who wins and loses elections, but independents too often get ignored in the narrow partisan analysis of American politics. It's time for that to change -- and in the run-up to the midterm elections I'll be writing regular columns for CNN.com on the state of independents.
OPEN PRIMARIES
  • Killer Tomatoes Producer Opens California Primaries to Block Party `Kooks' (By Ben Elgin and Christopher Palmeri, Bloomberg) Having won over California voters, Peace’s movement is going national. New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has impaneled a commission that is, among other things, exploring an open primary initiative for New York City’s November ballot.
  • FL: Mark Klingensmith: Write-in tactic works only when parties don’t field candidates (TC Palm) amendment to Florida's Constitution was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 1998 to provide that if all the candidates for an office are in the same party and face no opposition in the general election, then all registered voters will be allowed to vote in the primary. 
  • FIX AMERICA? FIX THE POLITICIANS (Dylan Ratigan, Investing Contrarian) Furthermore, the false choice of “Republican” or “Democrat” is keeping some of the best candidates from making it to the general election. If politicians want to align themselves into two Political Parties, that is their right. But the government shouldn’t allow them to hold separate primaries. Hopefully this recent move to open primaries in California will take off across the country.
THIRD PARTIES
TEA PARTY
GEORGIA
  • Endorsement and 'thumbs up’ boost candidacy for Georgia governor (By Walter C. Jones, Florida Times Union - Jacksonville) The Georgia Independent Voters spent six weeks deciding which gubernatorial candidate of the 15 running from the three parties should be on the ballot. It came down to two long-shot candidates, Chapman and Democrat Carl Camon. Key to its decision was the candidate most enthusiastic about removing restrictions to independent candidates and third-party candidates getting on the ballot.
NEW YORK
NYC CHARTER REVISION

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