Alternative to election primaries

This is just an idle thought about how an electorate could manage ballot access.

Our city runs primary elections for the two major parties several months ahead of the election. (I don't remember when exactly.) Although they happen at the same time (and maybe on the same physical ballot?), you can only vote for candidates of one party or the other. But sometimes I think there are also non-partisan items that you can vote on?

Separate from this, there is a process to be included on the ballot for the actual election. A political party that has reached a certain threshold in a previous election (5% I think?) may choose a candidate to place on the ballot. They can use the primary process to make this choice, but they don't have to. Aspiring candidates from outside these parties can collect a certain number of signatures. In either case, I think that the candidate (or their party?) has to pay a fee to be listed on the ballot.

Our local elections use ranked choice voting (although primaries do not).

Our city strongly favors one party. The final ballot generally has one candidate from each of the major parties and a handful of other candidates. The winning candidate always belongs to the locally favored party. This creates a feeling that the "real" decision happens during the primary, when the party chooses its candidate. This limits the ability of voters to participate in an election, since only party members can participate in their primary.

My alternative is to hold a "ballot qualifier" instead of the party primaries. In order to be listed on the final ballot, an aspiring candidate would need to participate in the "qualifier" election and earn a certain threshold of votes. Let's say 5%. My guess is that a typical "qualifier" result would be split something like 30/30/20/5/5/5/less or 20/20/15/15/15/5/5/less. That is, there might be three to five competitive candidates, a few who barely reach the threshold, and any number who fail to qualify for the final ballot.

In the "qualifier" election, each voter may vote for exactly one candidate. Because the threshold for ballot access is quite low, and it doesn't matter who gets the most votes (only who reaches the threshold), I think that each voter can confidently vote for their preferred candidate, rather than feeling obligated to vote for a less appealing candidate who appears more competitive. The more competitive candidate will surely receive enough votes to pass the ballot threshold (or if they don't, then I guess that they weren't actually competitive?). The final election uses ranked choice voting, which helps limit a "spoiler effect" from having more candidates in the field.

In order to participate in the "qualifier" election, an aspiring candidate would need to collect a certain number of signatures and pay a fee, just like the current process for appearing on the ballot.

Of course, the final ballot still has a write-in option, so candidates who don't pass the qualifier (or don't participate for some reason) could still run and win as a write-in candidate. The odds are against a write-in candidate, so it's typically better to simply participate in the qualifier, and withdraw if you don't pass it. But the write-in option is there in case it's needed.

My desire is for the final election to be a contest between popular candidates, instead of feeling like a formality between an "adequate" choice and an "inadequate" choice. In a district like ours, this suggests that the top candidates should usually be from the same political party, not from opposing parties.

Even if a candidate passes the qualifier, they aren't required to appear on the final ballot, of course. Members of a political party could agree to withdraw in favor of the candidate (among themselves) who received the most votes in the qualifier. This is still better, in my opinion, than a party primary, because it allows the entire electorate to participate in the process.

If a party still wants to run a primary, either before or after the qualifier, they are welcome to do it. But if they want to, they should use their own resources to organize and run it, rather than the district doing it for them (which appears to be the case for us right now).

Could this approach be abused? Maybe a party tries to promote a broad slate of flaky opponents so that their serious opponents are diluted below the qualifier threshold? My hope is that the threshold is low enough that this would be unlikely to work. Could a malicious voter vote for a flaky opponent instead of their preferred candidate, so that the flaky opponent qualifies higher than a serious opponent? This wouldn't affect the votes received by the serious opponent, so it would have no effect. If both opponents have a party agreement to withdraw to the higher qualifier, then it could cause a serious opponent to withdraw in favor of a flaky one, but I hope that this hypothetical scenario would instead be taken as an objection to entering into withdrawal agreements rather than an objection to the "ballot qualifier" proposal.

This proposal so far doesn't provide any consideration for incumbancy. You could allow the incumbent candidate to bypass the registration requirements for the "qualifier". Or you could allow the incumbent candidate to bypass the "qualifier" entirely and be ensured of a position on the final ballot. Personally, I would favor the former and oppose the latter.

Recap

The district stops running party primaries.

Instead, run a general "ballot qualifier" several months in advance of the election.

Candidates must collect signatures and pay a fee to participate in the "qualifier".

In the "qualifier", each voter may vote for one candidate.

If a candidate receives at least 5% of the total votes during the qualifier, they are eligible to appear on the final ballot. Only candidates who participated in the qualifier and reached this threshold may be listed on the final ballot.

The final election uses ranked choice voting.

I guess that's it.

emptyhallway

2023-07-02