I have been writing about this issue for a long time.
Elections should be conducted for voters, not parties. Did you know that taxpayers spent over $500 million to fund partisan primaries in 2012. Taxpayers paid for this, whether or not they were registered with a party.
End Partisanship is a coalition of non-partisan organizations advocating for an end to party control of our elections.
They believe that representatives should represent people, not parties.
They are challenging partisan primaries in the courtroom, advancing non-partisan electoral reforms, and educating voters about the importance of primary elections.
CLICK HERE to sign their petition.
I signed!
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
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4 comments:
Some southern states did force parties to pay for their own primaries before 1972. The parties raised the money by charging huge candidate filing fees. The US Supreme Court struck down mandatory filing fees and then the parties went to the state legislatures and said "What can we do?" and the legislatures then passed laws saying taxpayers pay for primaries. If governments didn't pay for primaries, parties would either need to rely on rich individuals or special interests, or else parties would revert to nominating by convention, which is the way other parties all over the world choose their nominees.
So then we could have each party using a self-funded convention and then a taxpayer open primary to determine who goes on to a general election.
Why even have a primary if the primary isn't used for parties to choose nominees? Why not just have a general election? That's the way it was done in the U.S. between 1788 and 1905, in all states.
What do you suggest the entry to the general election should be?
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