Posted: 6/5/2012 8:23:43 PM EDT
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Forgive my ignorance, but as I was channel surfing, Madcow said, "There are now no primaries by political party. All candidates from every party are thrown into the primary. Then the top two vote-getters square off in November –– regardless of affiliation." 1. Is that the process in ALL elections? 2. Is this the norm any place else?? 3. Does this hurt/help any one party? |
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AFAIK, in Kalifornia primaries now, you can vote for whomever you want, no matter their or your party. It used to be Dems could only vote for Dems in the primary and so on.
ETA, I stand corrected: Being registered with a political party will make a difference when you vote in a Presidential primary election, but in California it will not make a difference when you vote in the statewide primary election for state constitutional, U.S. Congressional, and state legislative offices. Both the next Presidential and statewide primaries will be held on June 5, 2012. Source: http://www.cavotes.org/vote/primary |
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I voted today. I had the option of voting for Barack Obama for the Democratic Party's nominee for President. I had some other Independents I could select––including someone styled "Mad Max" Rieske, but I didn't have any Republican selections.
Turns out I'm still regiistered as an American Independent Party member. I took care of that today. The Dems have it wired here that if you have no party preference, or are registered Independent, you have the option of voting for their candidate. |
According to the RESULTS page, it looks like Elizabeth Emkin will be facing off against Dianne Feinstein in November. |
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Quoted: Worked the polls today. Turn-out was abysmal and so were the choices on the ballot. With our new system, it is not implausible for there to be two Democrats running in the general election. Do you think it helps/hurts the chances of a third-party candidate getting on November Congressional/Presidential ballots? (i.e. "third party" replacing one of the R's or D's) |
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Quoted: Quoted: Worked the polls today. Turn-out was abysmal and so were the choices on the ballot. With our new system, it is not implausible for there to be two Democrats running in the general election. Do you think it helps/hurts the chances of a third-party candidate getting on November Congressional/Presidential ballots? (i.e. "third party" replacing one of the R's or D's) The third parties seem upset about it, so I imagine it hurts them more than it helps them. Of course, there isn't much to pick from among third parties, unfortunately. |
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Quoted:
Forgive my ignorance, but as I was channel surfing, Madcow said, "There are now no primaries by political party. All candidates from every party are thrown into the primary. Then the top two vote-getters square off in November –– regardless of affiliation." 1. Is that the process in ALL elections? 2. Is this the norm any place else?? 3. Does this hurt/help any one party? I noticed that. My GOP ballot seemed to have every candidate from every party. WTF? |
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Quoted:
According to the RESULTS page, it looks like Elizabeth Emkin will be facing off against Dianne Feinstein in November. I'd never heard of Elizabeth Emken until recently, but I'd hit it. 
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Quoted: Quoted: Forgive my ignorance, but as I was channel surfing, Madcow said, "There are now no primaries by political party. All candidates from every party are thrown into the primary. Then the top two vote-getters square off in November –– regardless of affiliation." 1. Is that the process in ALL elections? 2. Is this the norm any place else?? 3. Does this hurt/help any one party? I noticed that. My GOP ballot seemed to have every candidate from every party. WTF? Because except for POTUS races, party primaries have been eliminated. Now it is just a general primary in which the first two past the post make it to the general election, regardless of partisan affiliation or lack thereof. So if two Democrats get the largest and second largest number of votes, respectively, you will only be able to vote Democrats in the general election if you decide to vote. I'm not sure how it affects write-ins. I did find out after writing in John Bolton for POTUS that write-ins for POTUS don't count unless the person written in is on some sort of State-approved list, so that vote won't count. |