The Independent View: General Election Playbook

Continuing my playbook for Structural Political Reform, we come to the General Election. We left off with the running of the Open Primary. Now we need to decide how we get candidates to the General Election. And here is where we run into many walls.

Under our current state and federal systems, the general is where we not only elect our political representatives, states use this election to determine the number of petition signatures to get on future ballots, determine a party's position on the ballot, etc. So reducing who can get on the general ballot requires all states to change their election laws. So I was ready to punt this part of my playbook. Then I can across this comment on someones blog:

"Why don’t the different parties pay for the primary? It is not the election. It is to see who will run in the election according to the different parties..."

Now I had something to work with. Why do we need state run primaries? We only need the states to run state and federal General Elections where all registered voters have a change to take part in the process of voting.

To create a system to answer all the Supreme Court issues, I would create a General Election ballot system with these features:

1. All Candidates selected by their parties (Major and Minor) paid for system.

2. A fee or petition process for non-selected major and minor party candidates.

3. A fee or petition process for independents.

5. A fee or petition process for non-qualified party candidates. It would be up to the state to determine the process to become a qualified party.

6. Write-ins.

Ballot Format

There would be two boxes next to the candidate's name: One optionally indicates the candidates registered party, the other optionally indicates all endorsements.

A possible additional element in the primary could be IRV. This would allow your first selection of a favorite son or daughter, vanity candidate, etc., and the use of other selections to rank your choices.

Please let me know how you would run an election.