Yes/No Elections vs. Blanket Primary: Voting System Ballot Initiatives

[Gary Swing]

I have agreed to join Frank Atwood, the Libertarian candidate for US Representative for Colorado's First Congressional District, as a designated representative for Initiative 106 — the “Yes/No Elections Initiative.” The system of “Yes/No Voting” proposed by Initiative 106 has been called “evaluative voting” elsewhere.If Initiative 106 were to be passed in Colorado, each voter would be able to cast a vote yes to approve or no to disapprove of each candidate on the ballot for federal, state, and county office. A yes vote would count as one positive point for a candidate. A no vote would count as one negative point against a candidate. If a voter does not cast or yes or no vote to evaluate a candidate, not voting would effectively be a neutral stance for zero points. The candidate who receives the highest evaluative vote for a given office would be declared the winner. Yes/No (evaluative) voting would still be a single winner voting method, but it would eliminate the "spoiler effect" from "splitting the vote" between two or more similar candidates. Evaluative voting would enable each voter to better express his or her opinion of each candidate on the ballot. Voters would literally have the freedom to vote against any or all candidates, as well as the freedom to vote for any candidates s/he supports.Yes/no voting is a simple voting method. My response to people who say that it is too complicated has been: "What part of yes/no don't you understand?"We really need an open party list system of proportional representation in order to create fair political representation in legislative bodies for a politically diverse society. Unfortunately, we do not have a ballot initiative for proportional representation in Colorado this year. However, the Yes/No (evaluative) voting system would be a step forward, offering a better way to choose winners for single member offices. I urge supporters of the Green Party to help circulate petitions to place Initiative 106 on Colorado's election ballot this year.I strongly disagree with Harry Hempy, the Colorado Green Party's nominee for Governor concerning another state ballot initiative. Harry Hempy has endorsed Initiative #112, which would create a "blanket primary" or "two stage" election system for Colorado. I oppose Initiative #112, which is one of a package of three election law related state ballot initiatives proposed by Ryan Ross, a designated representative of the Coalition for a New Colorado Election System.Initiative 112  is a bad idea that would make major changes in the state election system to address an imaginary (or at least a trivial) problem. I ask how many Colorado voters sincerely have a strong interest in casting a single vote in the Democratic primary for one candidate for one office and one vote for a Republican candidate for another office in the same primary election? If there isn't a strong demand for voting for candidates of different parties in primary elections then Initiative 112 is pointless.The blanket primary system would be most likely to appeal to a narrow demographic of “swing voters” who are undecided about whether they prefer the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. Studies conducted by Karl Rove concluded that no more than 3% of voters are truly “swing voters.”  What fraction of this indecisive 3% has a strong, sincere interest in casting votes for both Democrats and Republicans in a primary election?Colorado has five recognized political parties with access to the primary ballot. The Libertarians, Greens, and Constitution Party do not have any primary contests in Colorado this year. I believe that the Democrats only have primaries for five out of 101 partisan offices and the Republicans only have 17 primary contests in Colorado this year. As advocates of the blanket primary system point out, voter turnout for primary elections is dismally low. But their proposal is not a solution. After California and Washington instituted blanket primaries, voter turnout for the primaries dropped rather than increasing. As Richard Winger, the editor of Ballot Access News, has pointed out, California experienced its second lowest primary election voter turnout ever in 2012, the first blanket primary conducted under the state’s new two round election system. Richard also pointed out that the November vote is the real election under federal law. Voters in the general election should not be limited to a choice between Democrats and Republicans only. The purpose of a primary election is for a political party to select candidates for the general election who best represent their views. Initiative 112 eliminates the purpose of the primary election without eliminating the primary election itself. This is a dumb idea. It doesn't make any sense.The United States is the only major country that uses primary elections to nominate candidates for political parties. An argument could be made to eliminate public funding for primary elections and let political parties establish their own procedures for nominating candidates. That case has not been made by the Coalition for a New Colorado Election System.Ryan Ross and his Coalition for a New Colorado Election System have raised a variety of general objections to the American political system, but their proposals do not address the problems that they have identified. Their proposed "solutions" are, at best, irrelevant, but more to the point, counterproductive. Initiative 112 would make what I consider to be some minor improvements. These include: 1) moving the primary election from June to September; 2) reducing signature requirements for Republican and Democratic candidates to petition onto the primary ballot; 3) allowing voters to sign candidate nominating petitions online; and 4) implementing an "instant runoff" ranked choice ballot for the general election.However, the first round, blanket primary ballot would still use a primitive single vote ballot. If an instant runoff ranked choice ballot is used in the general election, the blanket primary ballot is totally unnecessary. All candidates could be included on a single ranked choice ballot. This would be more fair and logical than the wasteful, inefficient and exclusionary two round voting system.While instant runoff voting is probably an improvement over the single member plurality vote, it is still problematic. IRV reinforces the two party system. It could be used to eliminate the spoiler effect of minor party candidates, but it doesn’t work so well when there are three or more strong candidates. IRV may not select the “Condorcet winner” – the candidate who would beat all other candidates in a series of one on one matches. A Condorcet, or “round robin” vote count could be held using a ranked choice ballot in place of the IRV count. I think the national Green Party should reconsider its platform proposal to use IRV to elect candidates for executive offices. My current opinion -- revised by my recent studies of various single winner voting methods --  is that some form of range voting would be better than IRV for single winner elections. Range voting methods enable each voter to evaluate each candidate on a point scale. The scale could be a 100 point scale, a five point scale, a two point scale, or anything in between. A voter could give the same score to multiple candidates, just like they would under a "five star" movie rating system. Approval voting would be the simplest form of range voting -- simply a binary choice of approving or not approving of each candidate. For single winner offices, I like the idea of a five point range vote that would enable each voter to rate each candidate bad, poor, fair, good, or great. I'm not a fan of the simplest form of approval voting. As a voter, I would prefer to give a higher rating to some candidates than to other candidates.The blanket primary proposed by Initiative 112 would eliminate candidates in a low voter turnout election and limit voter choices in the higher turnout general election. In California and Washington, the blanket primary system has eliminated most, if not all, minor party and independent candidates from the general election ballot. We should expect the same result if this system is adopted in Colorado. At least for statewide, Congressional, and presidential elections, we would be unlikely to have any candidates other than Democrats and Republicans on the general election ballot. Advocates of blanket primaries pretend to represent “independent voters,” but in reality, the system they promote shuts out independent and minor party candidates to the maximum possible degree.Initiative 112 would reduce the number of candidates a political party can nominate to the primary by assembly from three to two candidates and adds a filing fee to the petition signature requirements for candidates who choose to petition onto the ballot.The following comments from Harry Hempy concerning the likely effects of Initiative 112 are incorrect, and I believe they reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the proposed initiative:  “Please rethink this. In a first-round contest between a D, R, G, and L nominee it is 100% guaranteed that the 'better' of the L or G candidate will advance to the general election. If both the G and L get 3% they are both in. The only case in which no minor party (or unaffiliated) candidate would make it to the second round is if the Dems or Reps nominate two candidates, both of which finish in the top three in the first-round election. But the parties would never do that because having two D's (or R's) running against one R (or D) will assure the R (or D) will win.”[Please note, for the shorthand given above, D=Democrat, R=Republican, G=Green and L=Libertarian]  In fact, for statewide and Congressional district offices, there would be a near zero chance that any Libertarian or Green Party candidates would advance to the general election. Very few minor party candidates break the 3% threshold for major offices now in Colorado's general elections. The blanket primary would take the place of both the Democratic and Republican primaries, with more major party candidates fighting to qualify for the general election ballot and more money being spent to influence the outcome of the first round. Minor party candidates would even less likely to reach 3% than they are now, and far less likely to finish in the top three. To be clear, political parties would NOT be able to prevent candidates from appearing on the ballot with their party name for either round of the proposed two round election system. The parties would lose their control over nominations. Candidates could be nominated either by assembly or by petition. A major party candidate for statewide office could get onto the first round ballot with 1,000 valid petition signatures, just as independent candidates do now. So it there were nine or ten candidates from a major party for a particular office, they could all qualify for the first round ballot more easily than they do now, using the petition process. It is theoretically possible that the general election ballot would include only candidates from one major political party (probably only for smaller offices), and it is probable that only major party candidates would qualify for the general election ballot (for larger offices).In California, the Green, Libertarian, and Peace and Freedom Parties have filed lawsuits seeking the overturn the blanket primary system. In Washington, the Libertarian and Democratic Parties unsuccessfully sued to overturn their blanket primary initiative. Both the Democratic and Republican Parties have filed lawsuits against open primaries in various states, claiming that open primaries violate their freedom of association.In addition to Initiative 112, Ryan Ross and his coalition are also pushing Initiatives 113 and 114. Initiative 113 is an absolutely horrible idea that would base district boundaries on the statewide percentage of registered Democrats and Republicans. This would be the ultimate gerrymandering system with extremely distorted district boundaries. Congressional districts could vary no more than 3% from the statewide percentage of voter registration for the two largest parties. State legislative districts could vary no more than 6% from statewide voter registration for the two largest parties. With even a slight imbalance between Democratic and Republican voter registration, one party could win all the legislative elections in the state. If the 2012 election had been run under Ryan Ross' "competitive districts" initiative system, we would very likely have elected seven Republicans to Colorado's US House of Representatives delegation instead of four Republicans and three Democrats. If one political party had 55% of Colorado's major party voter registration, that party could win 100% of Colorado state legislature seats under Ryan Ross' redistricting plan.The proponents of Initiatives 112, 113 and 114 claim that they want to “end partisanship,” but Initiative 113 would redraw Colorado’s legislative districts on an explicitly partisan basis, sacrificing the factors of geographic compactness, municipal boundaries, and communities of interest in order to guarantee that only the statewide partisan political majority would be entitled to representation. This would turn the entire notion of geographic representation by districts upside down. If legislative representation is to be determined by party affiliation, it should be done by proportional representation so that all political parties can win fair representation.Realistically, Initiative 113 is so outrageous, there is no possibility that it would pass. Even if it did pass, it would immediately challenged through the courts. However, the fact that 113 is being proposed in conjunction with Initiative 112 further discredits Initiative 112 and its proponents.    Initiative 114 would make Colorado's chief elections administrator, the Secretary of State, an appointed position rather than an elected office. An argument could be made to create a parliamentary system with executive offices appointed by the legislature, rather than elected by the voters. Ryan Ross does not make this argument. Initiative 112 is an ill-conceived, counterproductive proposal. Initiative 113 would be a total disaster. Ryan Ross' Initiatives 112 and 113 are backwards, reactionary measures that should be scrapped. Initiative 112 would weaken the role of political parties in elections and make our elections even more expensive than they are now because successful candidates would need to campaign to the entire electorate twice. We already have the world’s most expensive elections. The blanket primary system would maximize the political influence of wealthy special interests at the expense of all other interests. The United States already has one of the most candidate-centered election systems in the world. Most other democratic republics have elections that focus more on political parties, platforms, and issues, rather than the personalities of individual candidates. Initiative 112 would take us in exactly the wrong direction.Party identification helps voters to make a connection between candidates and public policy positions. It’s easier for the average voter to choose a favorite party than to evaluate each of a long list of individual candidates. For elections to Australia’s Senate, voters may choose to rank individual candidates in their order of preference or cast a simple a simple vote for their favorite party. More than 95% of voters choose to vote for a party rather than ranking candidates. What we really need is an open party list system of proportional representation for electing our state legislature and members of Congress. This would enable nearly all voters to elect representatives of their choice and provide fair representation for each political party. I have been arguing for the past twenty years that establishing a party list system of proportional representation would be a necessary first step to establishing a politically viable Green Party in the United States. Proportional representation, usually in the form of party lists has enabled the Green Party to win fair representation in the European Parliament and the national parliaments of at least thirty countries. It has been pointed out that no statewide citizen initiative has qualified for Colorado’s state ballot in the past ten years without hiring paid petitioners. The unfortunate reality is that no initiative for a new election system will come before voters unless the initiative committee can raise at least a quarter of a million dollars just to get its issue on the ballot.Gary SwingGreen Party candidate for US Representative, CD6http://www.newmenu.org/swingvoter

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