On Sun, 5 Jan 2003 09:52:01 -0800 (PST) Alex Small wrote:
Dave said:How does a party get its millions of members together for such a convention to nominate a candidate for governor in NY or CA? Once together, how do the members manage to accomplish anything useful?then Mike said:You're missing the point, Dave: How they get their people together, and how they accomplish anything useful when they're together--those are their problems, not the problem of government, not a problem that the public should spend its much money on.I recall that the Reform Party has experimented with voting by mail in privately run primaries.
Consumed LOTS of $$$$; had room for lots of corruption (who gets to vote, and how many times).
Also, parties often like to preserve "purity" in primaries. Witness the way Republicans recoiled in horror when registered independents and Democrats campaigned for John McCain in 2000. (Oh no! Independent thinkers who don't like Al Gore are joining forces with us! Help!) So, parties might consider conducting primaries with volunteers who go to core constituencies, and only core constituencies. Democrats could send volunteers with ballots to union meetings and Hollywood. Republicans could send volunteers with ballots to NRA meetings and Enron executives.
Bad enough for the major parties - could destroy smaller parties such as the Greens, where there are more available outsiders than members - giving the outsiders control over who gets nominated to "represent" the Greens.
Sending volunteers to voter groups with known biases also destroys ability to see what party members desire.
If the parties don't like to do it themselves, then they can use the public primaries, but they must allow anybody who shows up to vote in their primaries. After all, if it's public then it's public. If it's private then it's private. (Of course, one could reasonably stipulate that voters in public primaries only get to vote in one party's contests, just as parents can't send their kids to one public high school for math class and another for history class.)
Disagreed!
Every voter in the public has the right to be a party member, and vote in that party's primary, and otherwise participate in that party's activity.
Could let parties each nominate as many candidates as they choose. Primaries are a mechanism for restricting each party to a single candidate for general election.
Could set up a primary for independent nominations, and let voters who are not party members vote hers. Unacceptable, for there are reasons to permit multiple independent candidates.
--One could justify the expense by observing that some places hold local a few local elections during the primaries, and perhaps decide ballot initiatives. The polls were going to be open that day, with or without partisan primaries. Alex
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Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026
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