A recent post here at IPR reported on Oregon’s Measure 65. Referred to as a “Top Two Primary”, the measure would pit all candidates against one another in a May primary with only the top two facing off in the November general election.
The Green, Constitution and Libertarian party leadership in Oregon has been contacted for their official positions on Measure 65. The Pacific Green Party has responded.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Mike Gillis // Sep 5, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I really hope that OR voters kill that thing.
2 Deran // Sep 5, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Yes, it’s played havoc with third parties here in WA. Nary a one will appear on the November ballot, except for president (which, luckily the states can’t mess with).
3 danmeek // Sep 5, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Measure 65 will destroy minor political parties in Oregon, reduce voter choices, confuse the ballots, reward dirty politicking, and not elect moderate candidates anyway.
Today, Oregon’s six minor parties can provide good alternatives to the Democratic and Republican candidates in the November general election. Measure 65 will stop this.
Measure 65 abolishes the Pacific Green, Constitution, Working Families, and Peace parties by removing their legal basis (getting 1% of the vote in a statewide general election). Without that, they would each need to maintain a membership of over 10,000 registered voters. Currently, these 4 parties average 3,320 members and thus would be abolished by Measure 65.
Measure 65 is also intended by its sponsors to remove all minor party and all citizen-sponsored candidates from the general election ballot, including those supported by tens of thousands of signatures.
Measure 65 will allow party identity theft and effective ballot sabotage.
Under Measure 65, anyone can register as, say, a “Republican” up to and including the 70th day before the primary election and immediately file to run for public office, with “Registered: Republican” next to his name on the ballot, whether he is a Nazi, Communist, convicted child molester, etc. Under Measure 65, any party can have its identity stolen this way by complete strangers who suddenly become “their” candidates.
Each party will try to reduce the resulting voter confusion by “endorsing” a candidate in each race, since Measure 65 allows party endorsements to appear on the ballot next to each candidate’s name. If voters follow these “endorsements,” this means Measure 65 will, in effect, replace the major party primaries with backroom endorsement deals. It will make no sense for any party to endorse more than one candidate per race, as that would merely split the votes of the party faithful and harm their candidates’ chances to advance to the general election.
Measure 65 will also force minor parties to “endorse” candidates they do not agree with, just to oppose the strangers on the ballot who suddenly claim to be “their” candidates. Minor parties do not field candidates for every partisan office, rarely nominating more than a few candidates for the 75 races for the Oregon Legislature every 2 years, for example. The Measure 65 party identify theft opportunity described above will force minor parties to endorse major party candidates in races where the minor party does not have its own candidate, even if none of the major party candidates agrees with the minor party on the issues.
Primary elections could become a game of “ringers,” with political consultants recruiting candidates just to split the votes of the other parties. Republican consultants could recruit people to register and file as “Democratic” candidates, thereby splitting the Democratic vote and allowing two Republican candidates to proceed to the general election, alone. Democrats could recruit phony “Republicans.” Both of them could recruit phony “Independents” and phony “Libertarians,” etc. Every party in every primary election can be sabotaged this way, under Measure 65.
Expect a confusing ballot, with a dozen or more candidates for each major office who are “Registered” and/or “Endorsed” by the surviving parties. In the only place where the Measure 65 system has actually operated, Louisiana, the number of candidates running for Governor alone in each primary, since 1979, has been 9, 9, 8, 12, 16, 11, 17, and 12 (an average of 12).
Not Elect Moderate Candidates. Measure 65 will not accomplish its purpose of advancing “moderate” candidates to the general election. In Louisiana, it has advanced extremists, because the moderate vote is split among several moderate candidates in the primary. Thus, avowed racist and Ku Klux Clan leader David Duke twice advanced to the statewide Louisiana general election. In 1991 he and former governor Edwin Edwards (accused of corruption) bested a primary field of 12 candidates. Edwards’ supporters distributed bumper stickers saying: “Vote the Crook: It’s Important.” Edwards won. He is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for corruption.
Sixteen candidates ran for Governor in the 1995 primary. The “top two,” who received only 26% and 19% of the vote, were the considered the two most extreme. The Measure 65 system seems prone to elect radicals, because the moderate vote in the primary is split among several moderate candidates for each office.
4 Steve Rankin // Sep 5, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Click here for my post on this monstrosity.
5 Steve Rankin // Sep 5, 2008 at 7:36 pm
In his comment above, Dan Meek discusses the 1991 and 1995 governor’s races in Louisiana. In 1991, the national Republicans and the state GOP endorsed different candidates, neither of whom made the runoff. At that time, ex-Gov. Edwards had already been tried several times for fraud.
In the Edwards-Duke runoff, the national and state Republican leadership endorsed the Democrat Edwards over the Republican Duke.
The 1995 gubernatorial runoff featured a white conservative Republican versus a black liberal Democrat (now-U. S. senator Mary Landrieu had finished third).
Both Duke in 1991 and the black Democrat in 1995 lost the runoffs by landslides. If Louisiana had had party primaries, it’s very unlikely that either of them would have reached the general election. This illustrates how the “top two”/”open primary” enables extreme candidates to reach the final election.
In the 1987 governor’s race, the top two vote-getters were both Democrats.
I’ve been watching the Louisiana “top two”/”open primary” since its inception in the 1970s, and I cannot recall a single time that an independent or third-party candidate has made the runoff for a statewide or congressional office. In fact, after years with NO minor parties, several minor parties became qualified several years ago in Louisiana.
6 G.E. // Sep 5, 2008 at 9:09 pm
It seems to me that this pretty much creates a runoff election. It seems to me that this greatly increases the chance of a good third-party candidate winning; for if he can make it into the top two, then he’s granted legitimacy, and if he can’t make it into the top 2 (with lower turnout, etc.), then he had no chance of winning in the first place.
Now, I would still oppose this on free-speech grounds. But from the idea of actually WINNING (versus “spreading ideas”), I would think this could be a good thing.
7 Mike Gillis // Sep 5, 2008 at 9:25 pm
GE, if this was an actual run-off, I’d have no problem with it.
But holding on to a ballot line and being able to force your issues into the debate and having a much higher turnout only happens in one election: the general election.
I’d not have any problem with this if the “primary”/run-off was on November 4 and the run-off was a couple weeks later.
8 G.E. // Sep 5, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Good point, Mike.
I, of course, am against government-printed ballots.
Still, even in light of your point and my dream, I think this system COULD work out for the RIGHT third-party candidate. The lower turnout increases chances of victory, even as it decreases the ability to disseminate message. The two kinda go hand-in-hand.
9 Steve Rankin // Sep 6, 2008 at 7:13 pm
G. E. says, “It seems to me that this pretty much creates a runoff election. It seems to me that this greatly increases the chance of a good third-party candidate winning…”
The “top two”/”open primary” is actually a nonpartisan general election with a runoff, despite the fact that many people call it a “primary” followed by a general election (in Louisiana’s so-called “open primary,” there is no runoff when one candidate gets 50%-plus in the first round).
The LA “open primary” essentially destroyed third parties in LA (the LA system is part of the residue of the old one-party [truly NO-PARTY] system, in which elections were decided in the Democratic primary, with a Dem runoff if necessary).
Richard Winger of Ballot Access News did a study of California’s and Washington state’s experience with the blanket primary, in which all candidates of all parties appeared on the same primary ballot. Richard found that third-party and independent candidates almost never finished first or second.
Mike Gillis says, “I’d not have any problem with this if the ‘primary’/run-off was on November 4 and the run-off was a couple weeks later.”
In the late 1990s, the federal courts ordered Louisiana to begin holding the first round of its congressional elections on the first Tuesday in November, with a runoff, if necessary, at a later date (the 2002 Mary Landrieu-Suzanne Terrell U. S. Senate runoff occurred on Dec. 7). That’s the main reason LA has this year restored party primaries for its congressional elections.
I’m convinced that the Washington “top two” and Oregon’s M65 are unconstiutional for congressional elections. That’s one of the likely further federal litigation issues that the WA “top two” faces.
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