As part of the budget netotiations this year, the California Legislature has placed several initiatives on a special election to be held in May. One of them changes the primary election in California. If the change is adopted by the public, partisan primaries will no longer be held. Instead, all candidates of all parties will compete in one multiparty primary election. The top two votegetters in that election will face each other in the November general election.
It has been pointed out that the result of such a primary scheme could be that the two finalists are from the same political party. In fact, the two could be from a party that is not favored by a majority of the voters in the district. Thus, a Republican leaning district could be represented by a Democrat, or a Democratic leaning district by a Republican.
The system could be gamed. A smart political operator could go to a district where there is an open seat and where many candidates of the dominant party in the district are campaigning for the nomination. This operative could then arrange for two (no more than two) candidates of the opposite party to compete. It is likely under this circumstance that these two could turn out to have the most votes cast for them, since the many candidates of the other party would split the votes among themselves.
It's not likely that this gaming would be wide-spread. We'll have to wait and see what happens with this new primary election scheme. At any rate, as long as everyone understands the rules and follows them, such a method of choosing nominees for the general election would be fair. Fairness, to me, means an open process that follows simple, universally understood rules.
Whether gamed or not, whether fair or not, my objection to the scheme is that it is not obviously representative. Let's suppose that there are six candidates total in the primary election. There are some Democrats, some Republicans, some Libertarians, and so on. Let's suppose that, because of the voting of independent voters, the two top candidates are a Libertarian and a Green. Let's assume that each one has slightly more than 1/6th of the votes cast. The result is that a district that is predominantly Republican (or Democratic) is going to be represented after the general election by a Green or a Libertarian. Neither of these candidates is acceptable to a large majority of the voters.
These are hypothetical examples of what might happen in the proposed non-partisan primary scheme. Because such results are possible, I claim that the scheme is not necessarily representative. However, after coming to that conclusion, the thought comes to me that the real purpose of changing the primary election process is not to achieve good representation but to rid the State Legislature of the stubborn extremists on both sides, in particular of Republicans who stick to their "no new taxes" pledge even if the result is to put the State into bankruptcy. A more compliant legislature makes life easier for the governor. Many governors complain that the legislature is too busy and passes too many laws. In addition, the legislature often refuses to pass laws that the governor wants.
I have a suggestion for modifying the proposed open primary which I will set forth in another diary.