How We Got Stuck With Two Candidates We Don’t Like And How We Can Stop That From Happening Again
By David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
Millions of citizens have asked: “How come one of two people who are BOTH unpopular is going to be our next President?”
The answer is simple:
We’ve set up a system in which we’ve given two private organizations, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, the right to pick our candidates for us.
It’s as if you voted to adopt a law that there could only be two companies that sold clothing, each of which used an insider process to pick which items made it onto the shelves. Then, when you went shopping you complained that you couldn’t find anything you liked.
It’s past time to stop complaining and change the system.
It can be done.
A Small Number of Voters Control Our Government
No, I’m not spouting some wacko conspiracy nonsense. I’m talking about how the Republican and Democratic party primary systems work.
According to the Gallup Poll less than 60% of registered voters are either Republicans or Democrats. Of that approximately 60% who are members of the Republican and Democratic parties typically less than 20% bother to vote in the non-presidential Republican and Democrat primaries that choose the Republican and Democrat congressional candidates.
That means that only about 12% (60% X 20%) of registered voters are participating in the elections that pick the primary candidates who get on the ballot for the Senate and House of Representatives. Yes, third party candidates get on the ballot but they don’t have the money to compete in races where most people just blindly pick the R or the D.
Since those primary elections are decided by a majority vote, somewhere around 7% of registered voters are actually picking who you get to choose as your Senator and your Congressman.
By the time you go to the ballot box in November (if you even bother to vote at all) the show’s already over. It like giving a vegetarian a dinner choice of either the steak or the pork chop. It’s not really a choice at all.
And you’re surprised that you don’t like the candidates you get? You’re surprised that you don’t like how those pre-selected people run your country? Really?
Why Things Work This Way
“I didn’t do anything. How the hell did this happen?” you ask.
Two aspects of human nature are basically responsible for the system we’ve got.
Call The Guy
1) We’re used to hiring professionals to do a job and then letting them handle it.
You let your dentist figure out how to take care of your teeth. You let your CPA figure out how to do your tax returns.
The same with the government. You expect “the system” to take care of itself while you concentrate on running your life.
Most people don’t have the time, energy or inclination to get involved in the process that picks the candidates that appear on their ballot. They leave that to the majority of the 12% of registered party voters who do bother to participate.
You’ve chosen to let those committed party members do your job for you, and they have. And now you’re complaining that you don’t like the results? Duh!
Government By Brands
2) We don’t want to think. We want an easy, non-thinking way make our choices. That’s why we have brands.
How do you decide between the three or four choices for your next vehicle? By the brand. If you’re a Toyota person you pick the Toyota product. That’s how you pick your clothes, your restaurants, and your political candidates. Picking a brand and sticking to it takes the inconvenient task of thinking out of the process.
When you choose your government by brand all you have to do is pick R or D, the elephant logo or the donkey logo, and you’re done, if you bother to vote at all.
You got Hillary on the ballot because the committed members of the Democratic Party wanted her. Moreover, most of the other people who might have wanted to be the Democratic Party nominee understood that they wouldn’t get nominated because the hard-core party people who make the choice would select Hillary, not them.
The same for Trump. He wasn’t selected by a wide base of voters. Far from it. He was selected by a fervent, dedicated, motivated minority of the population who chose to participate in the Republican primary process.
This happened because you abandoned your right to pick your candidates to these two private organizations.
The Fix? Eliminate Party Primaries
If you don’t like this system, if you don’t want this to happen again and again, there’s a relatively easy fix: ELIMINATE PARTY PRIMARIES — PERIOD.
That’s it. Take back the power you’ve given to the Republican and Democratic parties by eliminating their monopoly on choosing the candidates who appear on your ballot.
How can we do that? you ask.
Create A Non-Party, General Primary Open To All
How A General Primary Would Work
Any registered voter could get on the General Primary ballot by obtaining signatures on a nominating petition. The nominating signatures could be obtained the old-fashioned way or on-line, so long as the signer’s identity could be verified in a way that would prevent the same registered voter from signing the nominating petition for the same candidate multiple times.
A Manageable Number Of Candidates
If you give people ten or twenty alternatives they will just throw up their hands and quit or close their eyes and stick a pin in a name or they’ll just go back to picking their “brand,” the R or the D. It’s impossible for people to meaningfully pick when there are more choices than they’re prepared to deal with, but if you give people a maximum of five or six alternatives most of them will be able to evaluate the field and pick between them.
A key element in making the General Primary system work is limiting the number of candidates on the General Primary ballot to a number that’s small enough for people to be willing and able to thoughtfully pick the one or two they actually like.
I would suggest that the five candidates who have obtained the most nominating signatures in excess of 2% of the total number of registered voters, plus the incumbent, a maximum of six names, is more or less the right maximum number to appear on the General Primary ballot.
You Get To Pick Two Candidates!
The second key element is that the voters don’t have to pick one candidate. They will be allowed to pick their top two candidates. Psychologically, that’s a far easier choice for humans to make. That’s why ice cream shops sell cones with two scoops — for people who couldn’t decide on which one to pick.
More on how the “top two” choice system would work a little later in this article.
Candidates Can Pick Any Brand They Want
Each candidate who made it onto the General Primary ballot would be allowed to put any designation they wanted next to their name — Conservative, Liberal, Moderate, Republican, Democrat, Middle-of-the-Road, Capitalist, Reasonable Citizen, Green, Libertarian, whatever they wanted.
A Candidates’ Website With All Their Platforms
Each candidate would be given pages on an official primary-election website where they would be able to post their background, platform, proposals, positions, etc.
Require Answers To Citizen-Chosen Issues
Citizens would be urged to submit a list of issues they care about and each candidate would be required to state their position on each of the top ten issues the voters have submitted.
First Choice, Second Choice, Primary Voting
Because people aren’t digital, because the world isn’t black and white, because voters will have mixed emotions about different candidates, each voter will be allowed to pick two candidates — a first choice and a second choice. Essentially, the voters will be able to say, “I really like Sally Smith but if Sally doesn’t win I could live with Bill Jones.”
The first choice would get two votes. The second choice would get one vote. All the votes would be totaled and the top two vote-getters would appear on the general-election ballot.
This process would give each of the candidates an incentive to appeal to the widest portion of the electorate as contrasted with the “true-believer” party-primary system which encourages candidates to appeal to the narrowest, most extreme faction of their party’s members.
How Would We Legally Create These General Primaries?
For Congressional Elections
Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution provides:
“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.”
Each state could adopt a General Primary system for congressmen and senators within that state OR Congress could pass legislation setting up a General Primary system for all states for the election of all Congressmen and Senators.
For Presidential Elections
Action By Congress
Congress could enact legislation providing for a General Presidential Primary.
Under a plan adopted by Congress candidates could collect nominating signatures anywhere in the country. If there was no incumbent President, the top six nominated candidates’ names would appear on the General Presidential Primary ballot, otherwise the incumbent and the top five names would appear.
Voting would take place nationwide over a weekend, both a Saturday and a Sunday. Right now each state automatically lists the Republican and Democratic nominees on its presidential election ballots. Each state, or Congress, could enact legislation providing that each state’s general election ballot would also automatically include the names of the two candidates garnering the most votes in the General Presidential Primary.
Actions By States
The states individually could enact legislation providing for their own General Presidential Primaries or providing that their General Election ballot would automatically include the names of the two candidates who received the highest total number of votes in all of the various other states’ General Presidential Primaries held between February 1st and June 15th.
The Principle Behind This Plan
For people who don’t eat meat, a dinner choice only between the hamburger and the pork chop isn’t really a choice at all. Luckily, as diners we can change restaurants. As citizens we shouldn’t be stuck with pre-chosen candidates picked by a couple of private organizations controlled by insiders, true believers and big money.
The bedrock principle here is that things will work better if the voters themselves pick who runs their government rather than delegating control of their government to the special interest groups, money people, party insiders and political true-believers who pick the candidates nominated by the Republican and Democratic parties.
So long as the candidates that we are allowed to choose between in the general election are picked for us in advance by political parties which in turn are run by true believers, political insiders, big donors, and big business we’re going to continue to be given candidates we don’t want and legislators whose allegiance is to those insiders, true believers and big donors rather than to us.
–David Grace — www.DavidGraceAuthor.com
