Jungle Primaries

Astonishingly insufferably wrong-ass lie.

Well-spoken.

Many of us believe that taking office with a simple plurality of the vote is the true definition of democracy.
I just believe that each party should be allowed to consolidate their votes behind one candidate.
If there are 7 political parties, I believe that each of those seven political party should be allowed to have one candidate each in the general election for whatever seat or office they are running for.
The democratic party should be guaranteed one candidate. The republican party should be guaranteed one candidate. The Green party should be guaranteed one candidate. The Libertarian party should be guaranteed one candidate. Any and all other political parties should be guaranteed one candidate. That way each political party is allowed to consolidate their votes behind one candidate to run in the general election against all of the other candidates from the other parties.

1. What's The Difference Between A Caucus And A Primary?
2. What's The Difference Between A Open And Closed Primary?
3. What is a Semi-Closed Primary?

All Explained in Video

The system you describe is exactly what is happening in the primary. Each party is free to endorse who they want in the primary to "consolidate" their vote and every party is free to run whoever they wish. The top two get a vote from everyone. I don't see what your objection is. It sounds like you want legislation to protect parties that can't control their membership and end up with multiple candidates. I don't see why the state is obliged to do that.

I thought the reasons I objected to "Jungle Primaries" were pretty clear. If not, I will attempt to clarify myself. The top two vote getters in a "Jungle Primary" does not guarantee one representative of each and every political party to be on the ballot in the general election. Only the top two vote getters will be on ballot in the general election. That could be two democrats running against each other in the general election with no republican on the ballot. That could be two republicans running against each other in the general election with no democrats on the ballot. In this most recent California primary there was a fear that the republicans could potentially have the top two vote getters in some of these California primaries because the democrats had so many candidates which would cancel each other out. The republicans could have been the top two vote getters in some of those primaries because they had fewer candidates which meant there votes were more consolidated while the democrats votes were more diluted and spread out among multiple candidates.

The biggest fear in this most recent California "Jungle Primary" was that the democratic party could have potentially gotten the higher primary vote total over the republican party and still not have a democrat on the general election ballot. The potential for some of these seats was that the republican party could have had republican running against republican in the general election while the republican party got fewer votes than the democratic party. I am thankful that scenario did not play out that way, but the potential of that happening was very real in this most recent California "Jungle Primary"

Unlike the horrible "Jungle Primary", the normal primary format keeps the political parties primaries separate from each other to ensure that each party will have one and only one nominee in the general election..

That also includes smaller political parties. Green Party, Libertarian party, and any other political party.

Quote Real Music:
That would have to be a state law, that is, each state would have to pass that. You couldn't make it a Federal law, since the Constitution makes no mention of political parties.

I wouldn't mind each state mandating that, though. The only difference between you and I is that I w0uld be against any Federal or state law mandating that any party would need to hold primaries for their candidate to appear on the ballot. If you want to start a party where the leaders pick the candidate by divine inspiration, the state or Federal government should have nothing to say about it. The people get to decide if they like the candidate by honest election. And we need to work on the "honest" part of that, our elections in November are a mess.

I know every state makes their own laws. I also know that each political party makes their own rules. I am merely stating my disapproval to the California (Jungle Primary). I was also giving my specific reasons of why I believe the "Jungle Primary" system is horrible. This is merely me telling everyone what I think of the (Jungle Primary). I have no problem with people having different opinions on the (Jungle Primary). These are just my own personal opinions.

I, also, have no problem with Jungle Primaries.

I would be in favor of parties only allowing a certain nomumber of candidate to run under their “brand”. So the Democratic Party of California could say that only 2-3 candidates can declare as “democrats” and the other 4-5 would have to run in the jungle primary as independents.

I like the idea of the general population getting to choose between two democrats or two republicans in the general election (if that’s how the jungle primary results ended up). It is sort of a way to get around the horrible first-past-the-post system we have.

If the presidential election worked this way you would have had a jungle primary that probably would have ranked

1. Hillary
2. Bernie
3. Trump

Then the general election would have had the country choosing between Hillary and Bernie (instead of just democratic voters making that choice).

Ego.

"So what if there are 20 Democrats? There's only one me!"

In Maine, we have a Democrat who runs in every general gubernatorial election every 4 years and splits the vote. He has won two elections for Paul LePage.

You are describing a two-round voting system. It's a very frequent system across the globe. It works reasonnably well to select people with broad popular support behind them, while avoiding some of the pitfalls of the first-past-the-post system, eg the two-party curse.