Primary elections

[oceanchild]

Bumping this because I just stumbled across this article from last year, which I thought was really interesting: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...er-washington/

We just moved to an area where nearly every race is decided in the primary elections.

[L.Jane]

Even though I haven't actually voted Republican in a while I will vote in the Republican primary next week. Even though my kids aren't in the public schools our state is a mess bc of a lot of Republican politicians and our governor. I will vote against any Brownback-Republican that I can.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This! I haven't voted in a non presidential election for a while, but I am registered as a republican so that I could vote last tuesday against the Brownback supporters. Registering as a democrat here is just throwing your primary election vote away.

[spotty_dog]

We just moved to an area where nearly every race is decided in the primary elections.

Registering as a democrat here is just throwing your primary election vote away.

So interesting! I knew our top-two system was fairly unique, and had pondered a little bit about the difference it really makes, but it really is interesting to think about how closed primaries enforce binary party politics and extreme candidates.

Based on preliminary results, we'll have two Republicans on the ballot for State Treasurer, even though 51% of the vote went to Democrats. So that's interesting. And though the majority of the races did end up with one Dem and one Rep, there will be some Libertarians on the ballot in races where no Democrat candidate entered.

[oceanchild]

I'm really intrigued by top-two primaries, although that example is definitely one of their major flaws. They're talking about creating an open primary here where unaffiliated voters get a ballot with everyone on it (separated by party), but you can only vote for one party on the whole ballot. That seems... challenging.

And we're a swing state, but the self-sorting is still strong enough at the local level to make those general elections totally noncompetitive.

[medpedspouse]

They're talking about creating an open primary here where unaffiliated voters get a ballot with everyone on it (separated by party), but you can only vote for one party on the whole ballot. That seems... challenging.

This is so frustrating. For those that have marginal knowledge of the system (ME), this makes voting such an unpleasant experience. I do not want to have to vote for some asshat just because I want to vote for someone else that shares their party. Ughhh.