Comments on: Taking advantage of the twisted primary design

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 19:41:58 +0000

Is there a way to see how many primary votes in the Republican primaries in the open primary states are from registered Republicans versus non registered Republican voters? If so it might be possible to compare this to previous presidential primaries to see if non registered Republican voters are attempting to sway the vote. Also maybe there is a way to check if Democratic activists in open primary states are encouraging left leaning independents (or Democrats who in some states can vote in either the Dem primary or Repub primary but not both) to vote in the Republican primary for the candidate considered least likely to win the general? Maybe on leftist websites or email lists etc? My concern is that maybe Donald Trump is benefiting from crossover voters.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 18:14:32 +0000

Yann:

Then the remedy is to form a new party and it can have a primary of its own, too. Parties have a right to keep their primaries to themselves. The question is how to go about doing it.

By: Yann

Yann — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 13:21:03 +0000

I wonder what’s to prevent a candidate who is against a party–and possibly out to destroy it–from using that party’s primary process to harm it?

Being against party's establishment is not the same than being against the party, taking into account that about half of the people in the party support that candidate. Unless US politics has gone from "we the people" to "we the establishment", which seems to be the case, by the way.

By: Ira

Ira — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 06:17:18 +0000

Further to my comment:
A party regular should be someone who has been a registered member of the party continuously for at least 2 years prior to the party’s primary or caucus.

By: Ira

Ira — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 06:15:00 +0000

Neo-neocon queries:

Should only the party regulars be allowed to vote in their party’s primaries?

YES!!

By: Matt_SE

Matt_SE — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 03:45:50 +0000

I agree with your final thought: the Dem primary is too closely contested and the passions (at least between the two rivals) are too high for people to waste their votes on gaming the other party’s nominations.

If Dems have a clear winner soon then yes, that would be a problem.
Also, open primaries are insane. A throwback to a more innocent age when we were all Americans at least in theory.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 00:04:36 +0000

Sevenwheel: Yes, I know, and I wrote a post about that last month. However, in a state like SC, that isn't operating so much. It has an open primary AND Clinton is way way ahead in the polls. So people may not mind switching to vote GOP to help Trump, although of course not as many as there would be in a completely uncontested primary. It's really a state by state thing, depending on how the Democratic primary is looking in each state, and what the rules are in that state about switching.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 23:39:48 +0000

J.J.:

There are states like that, and it doesn’t do away with the problem. People in those states often register as a party member and then change back to Independent afterward the primary. You have to give people the freedom to be able to change parties, don’t you? The question is how far ahead of a primary must you register as a member of one party or other?

By: J.J.

J.J. — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 23:37:54 +0000

My solution to the open primary issue is this. Only registered Rs can vote in the GOP primary and only registered Ds can vote in the Dem primary. Independents who want to vote in the primaries can change their registration to do so. That would prevent any sand bagging by one side or the other. Too restrictive? Where does it say that voting should be as easy as falling off a log and subject to manipulation?

By: Sevenwheel

Sevenwheel — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 22:58:56 +0000

I think that this is MUCH more likely to happen when one party has a candidate running effectively uncontested. I don’t think that this will be a factor this year because the Sanders/Clinton race is so hotly contested. Sanders is obviously winning the popular vote, but Clinton has the superdelegates. Add those two factors together and the Democratic race is virtually tied. It turns out to be an all-hands-on-deck, every vote counts contest, so Democrats are not as likely to switch parties just to interfere with the Republican primary when their own primary is on the line the way it is this year.