Re “Should state adopt an open primary? Yes: It would help third parties thrive where they now flunk” (Viewpoints, March 28): For more than three presidential cycles Ralph Nader has worked to open the political system to more voices and more choices for American voters. <\/p>\n
That’s why it is particularly strange that Harry Kresky, in his commentary in favor of California adopting Proposition 14 for an open primary system, would claim that by opposing the initiative, Nader is against progressive change in the electoral process or is seeking to “slam” the door shut on independents. Nothing could be further from the truth. <\/p>\n
Kresky misstates Nader’s position since many independents and minor parties are rightfully against Proposition 14. <\/p>\n
Among the many reasons to oppose Proposition 14:<\/p>\n
• The limited historical data provided by the only two states that have tried it, Washington and Louisiana, show that third parties virtually never make the top two candidates and are cut out of the November election, when most voters are paying attention and voting. <\/p>\n
• Electoral competitiveness will likely decrease as the major parties will be able to game the system by attempting to consolidate behind one primary candidate, thereby limiting voter choice even in the primary;<\/p>\n
• As an insult to voter choice and ballot dissent, Proposition 14 prevents write-ins from being counted in November. <\/p>\n
These negatives, and others, overwhelm the two alleged advantages proponents claim Proposition 14 poses: that more moderate candidates will emerge and that independents would be able to vote for whomever they choose in the primary. But there is no historical support that moderates emerge from open primaries. Moreover, independents can already vote in primaries, they just have to pick one party’s primary to participate in, rather than picking amongst all the candidates of all the parties, a privilege no other party voter receives. <\/p>\n
On balance, the alleged reform is a choice-minimizing “cure” worse than the problem. <\/p>\n
California has enough problems; Proposition 14 will limit the candidates and the new ideas and solutions they propose (and that voters are able to choose from in November), thereby diminishing competition and choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Re “Should state adopt an open primary? Yes: It would help third parties thrive where they now flunk” (Viewpoints, March 28): For more than three presidential cycles Ralph Nader has worked to open the political system to more voices and more choices for American voters. That’s why it is particularly strange that Harry Kresky, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}