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Alaska’s Primary Debacle
Since a number of Alaskans are confused about this year’s primary, I suspect most of you are as well. Here’s a little clarification:
- This is an open primary which means political parties have nothing to do with it. Everyone who paid money to be on the ballot is on the same ballot. The top four vote-getters (regardless of political affiliation) will move on to the general election in November. There were ten choices for Governor, perhaps just as many for senate. The congressional seat was also included in this open primary format and the top four candidates (including Sarah Palin) will be going at it again in November. So Lisa Murkowski winning tonight doesn’t mean she’s the Republican nominee, it just means she gets to move on along with the other Republican nominee(s).
- There was also a separate “special” election on the other side of the ballot to temporarily replace Don Young’s vacant House seat. The winner of this will be a House member for three months until the general election decides the permanent replacement. Don’t ask me why they did it this way; it’s stupid…and expensive, just like everything the suits in Juneau do.
- The “special” election – that is to say, “special” like the guy nobody wants to get into a conversation with on the bus- is ranked choice. That means that if nobody gets a majority of the votes, the machines get to do some algebra to decide a winner based on people’s second, third, and fourth votes. It’s a system designed for fraud and there are some very overpriced nerds probably programming in that result as we speak.
I really think you’re wrong here, Zafar.
The question is: whose vote should determine who receives a party’s nomination. I say it should only be members of that party who vote on that. You need to make the case as to why Democrats should get to vote on who is the nominee for the Republican party.
You seem to be arguing that party officials shouldn’t decide who receives a party’s nomination. I tend to agree with that. But it doesn’t follow that means anyone should be able to help select the nominee. It means that party officials (the “men in a smoke-filled room”) should not decide on whom the members vote for, not that anyone can vote regardless of party membership.
You are missing this disticntion. Or maybe you aren’t, and I’m not understanding your argument.
If anything it’s excessively Democratic. Every voter gets to select what they would like and what they would be willing to settle for. No party gets to say ‘us, warts and all, or the devil’.
In Australia in the past this resulted in an increase of representation of small parties on the Right. (Which the main parties of the Right resented bitterly.)
Imagine a three way contest between a Republican, a Democrat and a candidate from the Pro Life (or alternatively Pro Choice) party.
No, I don’t disagree with you.
Thinking more along the lines of preferential voting in primaries and actual elections.
Though the Alaska open primary more or less diminishes the role of parties – which might be good and is certainly interesting. If they decide they want to pick between four Republicans, for eg, why is that bad? Clearly a Dem wouldn’t get elected, so let Democrats vote for the least objectionable Republican and have a chance of their vote counting (or vice versa).
The progressives game it. It goes one way: progressive kook.
Duluth Minnesota–which is totally, comprehensively left– dropped it because it was embarrassing.
I just took a look at Australia’s system, and there’s a major difference between Austrialia’s system and what Alaska has adopted.
First, Australia does not hold a two separate votes where top candidates are placed on the ballot to be voted on using ranked choice. In Australia, all candidates for a seat in Parliament are placed on the ballot for that one election. In the federal elections in the vast majority of seats, the top two parties gain those seats. I’ll add that until now, I didn’t realize their Libaral Party (which is their right of center party) is a coalition of two parties that often run against each other in some seats, and ranked choice is what ensures that the Labour Party doesn’t run away with a split “conservative” vote.
Second, and this is the reason why political parties are stronger in Austrailia than they are in the United States, the candidates for MP seats are chosen by party insiders, not by an open primary (using the American definition, they use that word differently in Australia). This means that to run for political office as a candidate of one of the major parties, you have to show loyalty to that party over time.
Trump would not thrive under that kind of system, because he was a Democrat for most of his adult life, and he became Republican because it was convenient.
Australia has a robust two party system. The U.S. not so much because party insiders at the local grass roots level don’t select their candidates for Congress.
I’m not a fan of how Australia governs itself in general, but that has more to do with an electorate that tolerates an intrusive government. They have elections every 3 years or less, not the typical 5 years or less that the UK and Canada do (as well as other countries with parliamentary systems in Western Europe and Israel).
If Australia’s electorate truly wanted to throw the bums out, and I mean throwing the two main parties out, they have plenty of opportunity. But the fact that one of the Australian states was putting their citizens in Covid-19 camps hasn’t resulted in bums getting thrown out.
Also our last Prime Minister seems to have secretly appointed himself Minister for Everything, so there are certainly drawbacks to the system as it stands. But not, imho, due to preferential voting, which is a plus, not least because it provides a check on the political elite in all major parties.
Sure, you get some kooks elected – I’m thinking Sports Enthusiasts Party – but it’s because people want them or someone like them. It’s a more real reflection of what Australia actually is, all of us.
Is that really a thing??
😂😂😂
By the Dark Gods I swear it.
And no TEA party type either.