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National Primary Day by Tom Painter 6-1-00 A committee of national Republican Party leaders made a proposal recently to change the schedule for primary elections to nominate candidates for President of the United States. Their basic idea is a primary schedule based on the size of the population of the states. It would reserve the earliest primaries to the smallest states, followed later by medium size states and leave the largest states for last. A state like Delaware would have a primary election date in March, a small-medium size state like Utah some date in April, larger states like Illinois would vote in May and the largest states would end the process in June. The proposal was offered as one answer to voter apathy. Coincidentally, the report was issued on Tuesday, May 2, 2000; a day when North Carolina and Indiana held primaries that drew very little interest at all. And why should they, when primaries for eighty-six percent of the population had already been held, and decided sixty-six percent of the delegates - enough to clinch the nominations of both major parties. Besides, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, only one fifth of Americans believe that primary elections selected Al Gore and George W. Bush as their parties' candidates. Most Americans feel they have very little real power over the presidential nominating process; that big donors and party leaders have more to do with selecting candidates. The goal of the proposal is to create more competitive elections and increase voter interest. It assumes that campaign costs are always lower in small states. Therefore, a candidate with less funds than others might have a better chance to win in the early primaries. Based on those victories, they might build up their fund raising prospects and produce a more viable campaign. As they reach the bigger states, they might present a greater challenge to candidates who seemed stronger in the beginning. That is the theory anyway. It sounds like a nice goal, but the reality of any election has many variables affecting the outcome, no matter what the schedule is. What about the fund-raising power and name recognition of incumbents, which can be difficult obstacles to overcome in any size state? Does a newcomer need campaign funding equal to or greater than an incumbent? If you don't have the leaderships backing, where does that funding come from - from outside the state more than it would have otherwise? Is that another concern that affects voter apathy? Can a well-funded candidate, with money to burn in the beginning, simply overwhelm the other candidates in the small states, getting them to bow out early before the bigger primaries? Isn't that exactly what George W. Bush did with most of the Republican candidates, except Forbes and McCain? Didn't all the minor candidates bow out after Bush sucked all the money and votes up in the early primaries and caucuses in small states? How would the Republican proposal have changed their prospects? Will voters in small states rush out to vote in early primaries? New Hampshire does, will all the others? Maybe voters in early states stay home because they have not heard enough from the candidates to make up their mind. Will voters in mid-size states vote in larger numbers in April and May, when almost fifty percent of the delegates are yet to be selected by the largest states in June. Or, instead, will the big states have more voter apathy, because sixty percent of the population has already voted and selected fifty-three percent of the delegates. Have you ever been a west coast resident at 7:45PM Pacific Time, about to vote, and then heard some radio announcer projecting your favored presidential candidate has already lost? One aspect of voter apathy is whether or not you can vote for the candidate you want. Many state primary election laws rig the system to favor one candidate anointed by the leadership. Without a legal challenge to New York's primary system, John McCain's name would not have been on the ballot in this year's primary. The issue was not money or name recognition; it was just the Stalinist tactics of a state Republican Party. The states' primary election laws need to create a more open process and make it easier to get on the ballot. If a truly marginal candidate gets on the ballot, the voters will take care of that fact at the polls; they don't need Soviet-style laws and party hacks to make those decisions. Meanwhile, politicians demonstrate disdain for the average voter in primary elections. They do not want the rank and file voting in large numbers. They want the party activists, and those loyal to the leaders, to dutifully vote for the candidate most favored by the leadership, and the undecided rank and file voters to stay home. Besides, if the major parties are really interested in getting everyone out to vote, then why isn't Election Day always a holiday? Many groups have looked at the issue of the American voters' apathy for years. Most attempts at a solution have come from states that simply jockeyed to hold their primary election earlier, ahead of other states. One leading researcher on this issue, at the Vanishing Voter Project at Harvard, Prof. Thomas Patterson, is on the record as saying he doubted the ( Republican ) plan would accomplish it's goals. He said he believed that if one candidate won most of the primaries in the first few months, that candidate would be acclaimed as the likely nominee, even if most delegates had not been elected.
Most primary election ideas of the politicians, including the newest Republican proposal, seem nothing more than shell games where the elusive voter will not be found hiding under any party's solution. Gerrymandering primary election schedules will not be a cure-all for the many causes of voter apathy. If the ultimate goal is a system in which Americans truly feel they have a voice in selecting the nominees for President, then the best answer is some form of a national primary day. The recent New York Times/CBS poll cited above, found that seventy-five percent of Americans favor a national primary election for Presidential nominations and The Gallup Poll has found similar majorities in surveys since the1950's. Some politicians and academics oppose a national primary day, out of concern that only candidates who are the best funded at the beginning of a campaign can run a single national race, all the way up to Election Day. Another argument against a single-day vote is that it eliminates sequential testing of the candidates. However, the sequential aspect of the present system encourages candidates to pander to special interests based on local concerns. When the voters of a late-voting state are not interested, the candidates are in an early-voting state pandering to some special interest that is favored there. When the campaign reaches that late-voting state, the candidates are singing a different tune, but their earlier words are usually forgotten. These antics contribute so much to the negative campaigning, the lies and the distortions. During a shorter race leading to one vote, the candidates are watched more closely all along the way. Then the pandering is more difficult and less effective. Only the special interests lose. Under current laws, changes in the manner and schedule of primary elections are decided by rules the parties adopt which are enacted into laws within each state. In most states, changes are proposed by either party and have to be agreed to by a majority of both parties. Different parties are in control of the state legislatures. Local leaders of both major parties will continue to seek favorable primary dates for their state. What are the chances that the state parties will resolve all their differences over new primary election proposals and produce a revised system in the next four years? The chances are slim at best. If the states do not jointly agree to a single primary day, then some form of federal law would be required - maybe a constitutional amendment. Right now, the constitution simply requires that the candidate be at least 35 years of age and a natural born U.S. citizen. Additional laws would be necessary to require that a candidate must be nominated in a primary election held in all the states on the same day, in order to be placed on the federal presidential election ballot. Such laws should also mandate that Election Day is a holiday. If a national primary day was imposed on the states, they could keep and modify the present system as a sort-of first round vote, to chose which candidates get on the national primary ballot. The national primary day could be held thirty days after the last state primary. If winner-take-all rules for the primaries were eliminated in all states, then any party candidate, who gets any percentage of the vote in a state, would go on the national primary ballot. Voters would have one last chance to make their choice count. Some people might even change their vote on the national primary day - after having witnessed the entire campaign. This method could even provide for some big last minute surprises, particularly for the special interests and national party leaders. The present primary election campaigns are too long, too dependent on too much money and pander to special interests at the expense of broader based national concerns. Any form of a National Primary Day election for U.S. presidential nominees would be preferable to the current state by state process.
Tom Painter 05/31/2000
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