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Michigan moving up primaries?

Rybak 187

By Rybak 187
in The Coffee House

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Rural King Town

Rural King

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The primary system is officially broken. All this moving of dates closer to the first of the year will just make Iowa and New Hampshire even more important - not less. We need to look at reforming the primary process so its more competative and a longer process during the actual primary season - instead making the year before the first primaries the actual primary season for two decisive states.

I really like the retail politics side of both states that the candidates have to master, but allowing two states to control the process - by really no fault of their own- is becoming a tad damaging to the selection process.

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Lowerdeck Burg

Lowerdeck

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Why need primaries? Just throw everyone in for one big election with 20 candidates from various parties and platforms. The primary system is broken, and just leads for people to make that decision pointed out rather well by South Park.

This whole system of elections is out of control. We'll be hearing Hillary vs. Romney for 8 months, at which case we will be sick of both of them by March, if not sooner. This might allow someone like Thompson or Bloomberg or a third party to swoop in and steal the presidency from a major party, which may or may not be a good thing.

If we are to keep primaries: Iowa caucus goes first ... sometime in July. New Hampshire goes three days later. Every other state goes at the same time one week after Iowa. The parties hold conventions in August or September. Elections in November. The end.

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runawayjim Metropolis

runawayjim

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If we are to keep primaries: Iowa caucus goes first ... sometime in July. New Hampshire goes three days later. Every other state goes at the same time one week after Iowa. The parties hold conventions in August or September. Elections in November. The end.
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Gusterfell Burg

Gusterfell

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I like the Australian election system. The ballot lists all candidates, and the voter ranks tem in order of preference. In counting the votes, if no one candidate receives more than 50% of first choices, the last-place candidate is eliminated, and votes who listed that person first are recounted, using the second choice. If still no candidate has a majority, the next lowest candidate is eliminated, his votes are recounted, and so on until someone has an absolute majority. THat person is declared the winner.

It might sound complicated, but in practice it seems to work well. It would eliminate the need for primaries, and would likely make it easier (or at least less impossible) for third parties to win electons.

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monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

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I like the Australian election system. The ballot lists all candidates, and the voter ranks tem in order of preference. In counting the votes, if no one candidate receives more than 50% of first choices, the last-place candidate is eliminated, and votes who listed that person first are recounted, using the second choice. If still no candidate has a majority, the next lowest candidate is eliminated, his votes are recounted, and so on until someone has an absolute majority. THat person is declared the winner.

It might sound complicated, but in practice it seems to work well. It would eliminate the need for primaries, and would likely make it easier (or at least less impossible) for third parties to win electons.

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torgo Town

torgo

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The other is in the current primary system really is a fairly recent phenomenon (really didn't come into play until 1968) where two of the smallest states in the country got enormous power of selection because they were chosen to be first in line. As noted above it's a broken system that does need to be fixed. However I have no confidence this will happen because the two parties have a vested interest in keeping it like it is.
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runawayjim Metropolis

runawayjim

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This is a good point. It seems like the first states to cast votes in primaries decide the nominees for each party. It seems very problematic to me, and is why all primaries should be held on the same day. However, as metro pointed out, the debate over doing something like that is probably as much about states' rights as it is about fairness, logic and common sense.
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monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

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the states can have primaries for state elections on another day if they wish. but for something that the entire country votes on (currently only president i believe), then there should be a law that all presidential primaries should take place on the same day. why is it that election day is the same in every state?
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MadVlad Town

MadVlad

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Election day, and I hope you knew this one, is specified in Article 2 of the Constitution and several amendments afterwards.

As I said above, the Constitution does not recognize political parties. The Constitution also says the Federal government can't assume power over state governments unless specifically specified in the elections. Hence there can't be a federal law that says when a state can hold a primary election just like there isn't one to election of dog catchers. States often choose to hold local election on the day that presidential elections occur mainly because of the consistency, convenience for the voters, and it also reduces costs to the tax payers.

Interestingly enough and even though he as repeatedly said that he does not want the federal government interfering in States Rights, GW Bush was quick to use the Federal Supreme Ct. to stop the recount process in the Florida election so that he could be declared the winner. I believe the Supreme Ct. erred first by taking the plea, and erred again by at a Constitutional level by telling Florida what had to do with it's election. The matter should have been decided in the Florida Supreme court. This is what happens when the Supreme Ct gets stacked with people who place political idealogical agendas above that of maintaining the Constitution.

The problem of course is that so many Americans are so ignorant of their own Constitutional and States rights they never figured this out.

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FromCityToRural Hamlet

FromCityToRural

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Nooooooo, not more...this is ridiculous. I think voter turnout's going to be the lowest ever, which takes some doing, and all because people are going to get burned out on presidential races. These people really aren't THAT interesting, certainly not enough to hear about them for a year and a half straight.

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snoogit Town

snoogit

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Good luck on this one. The state senate (AKA the only remaining GOP stronghold in Michigan) added a whole lot of garbage to the bill before it got sent to the house (controlled by the democrats) I don't expect it to get passed without some nasty debate, if at all.

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