Talk:Nonpartisan blanket primary

Merger
This article absolutely needs to be merged, but not with blanket primary, which is a completely different thing. The key difference is that in a blanket primary, a voter must choose among candidates from the same party for a single office, though they can choose different parties for different offices. In a jungle primary, however, all parties' candidates for each office are listed together. Not the same at all, despite the "also known as", which should have been removed.

However, the "jungle" primary has several names that do mean the same thing. "Louisiana primary" and "Cajun primary" redirect here; there should be a merger with run-off primary election under this title or "Louisiana primary" -- not run-off primary, which is an incredibly confusing term, as many states have primary run-off elections but only Louisiana has the so-called run-off primary. --SuperNova |T|C| 17:13, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Need to have correct taxonomy and titles
Political scientists classify American primary elections into four main types (actually, there are sub-types as well, depending upon how a voter is legally defined as "affiliated" -- registration, affirmation, etc.). A closed primary is one where voters affiliated with a particular party may select for all offices contested a nominee from choices of only that party. An open primary is one where voters regardless of party affiliation may select for all offices contested a nominee from choices of only one particular party. A blanket primary is one where voters regardless of affiliation may select for each office contested a nominee regardless of the nominee's affiliation, as long as only one choice is made per office. A nonpartisan blanket primary is one where candidates run in the same primary contest regardless of affiliation.

The last describes the Louisiana system since 1975. In 20+ years in the profession until I saw this entry I never had encountered the term "jungle primary." It is not the proper name as used by those who study election systems, and should be replaced by the term, "nonpartisan blanket primary." Voteearlyvoteoften 14:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the informed input. I would support a merge/move to nonpartisan blanket primary, with a redirect from Louisiana primary (and this and the other terms, just because). Do any other states have such a system or is Louisiana the only one? --SuperNova |T|C| 00:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that this article needs to be merged into blanket primary or that both be merged into "nonpartisan blanket primary". As far as I know, the term "jungle primary" was never meant to be anything other than an ironic, dispariging nickname for the process, not its official title. Rlquall 17:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

It would seem the most logical thing to do would be to make this article part of the "blanket primary" article, under a subsection called "non-partisan blanket primary," where the term "jungle primary" can be noted as an "also known as" (as well as possibly "Cajun primary," though that term doesn't seem to be as commonly used).

And to answer Supernova, yes, currently Lousiana is the only state to have this system, though other states used to have it, and it may be considered in other states, as is already noted in the "jungle primary" article. Troodon 07:24, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Isn't this exactly the same as the French two-round system?
Terminology aside, isn't this exactly the same as the Two-round system as used in France? The French don't call the first vote a primary, but apart from that I fail to see a difference. Therefore I think this article should be merged with Two-round system. -- 212.63.43.180 13:43, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The biggest difference is that in France (and many other countries) parties select candidates through their internal processes, rather than the public electing them in primary elections. Consequently you don't get all the contenders for a party's nomination running against each other and against other party candidates in the public election itself. For instance Ségolène Royal was selected as the Socialist candidate for the French presidential election, 2007 against Laurent Fabius and Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a ballot of party members. Fabius and Stauss-Kahn were never up against Nicolas Sarkozy and Royal effectively fought three elections - one to get the party nomination, another in the first round of the Presidential election to get into the last two (which her predecessor as Socialist candidate failed to achieve in 2002) and then finally the second round head to head with Sarkozy. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Was this really used in California
I thought California had an "open primary" for a while, and that there was a failed ballot measure for the Louisiana primary. Could someone who knows the specifics find the proposition numbers? Scott Ritchie (talk) 04:43, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

California has a 2010 ballot proposition (prop 14) that appears to be exactly this. Is it? I think something should be added, whether or not the prop passes.Spitzak (talk) 22:34, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Really needs criticism section
The article really needs a criticism section. The main one, of course, is the very real possibility that two candidates from the same party make it into the second round. In such a case, the winning party is whichever one had fewer candidates - a party with only 2 contenders will split its votes far less than one with 10. Scott Ritchie (talk) 04:43, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * But that's subjective. Some may consider it a good thing to have two from the same party in the second round.  Also, just because a party has fewer candidates does not necessarily mean it will advance two of them to the final round.  A party could have 10 candidates, but if one is well-known and the other nine aren't, the well-known candidate will likely dominate the vote. 98.209.116.7 (talk) 02:24, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, the argument that we need one from each of (only two) parties is nonsense. But a section that discusses criticisms and delivers responses thereto could be enlightening. D. F. Schmidt (talk) 18:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Because of California's non-partisan blanket primary, two Democrats ran against each other for a US Senate seat in 2018, receiving a combined total of 10,900,270 votes while Republicans candidates received 0 (zero). This allows the fake news media to claim that Democrats won "the national senate popular vote" by 9 million votes. Hobbe Yonge (talk) 04:30, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Only in your fevered imagination. I never heard this despite getting lots of liberal hogwash in my Facebook feed, and the first hit (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/29/the-most-bogus-stat-of-the-2016-election-how-democrats-won-the-senate-popular-vote) in a search was an article from the Washington Post (!) saying that such a statistic is meaningless. The Democrats "won" this in 2016 as well, with no effect of instant runoff, and they also did not do very well in that election. I also have to point out your bogus wording which implies that somehow the Republicans actually "won" this statistic, when in fact any estimate would require the votes to be redistributed (an idea would be to copy the CA governer's race, which would also add all the Republicans who did not vote for either candidate, a possibility you also ignored). Talk about fake news.Spitzak (talk) 16:58, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Washington
Any suggestions on how to add Washington's new Top Two primary to this article? TechBear (talk) 23:34, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Let's write an article about 872. Chadlupkes (talk) 20:46, 31 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Some more still needs to be done though; I'll add some more material. Peace, --Wikibojopayne (talk) 23:25, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Criticism section
The criticism section doesn't explain why critics dislike calling this an open primary system. 98.209.116.7 (talk) 02:22, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Also current one looks pretty messed up. There are comments that seem to be inverted "top two primary reduced the likelihood of running against a same party candidate" which seems absolutely impossible, and the Todd Donovan person apparently appears in *favor* of the top two primary, yet somehow somebody cherry-picked quotes that sound *negative* about the top-two! Hard to imagine he did not have any kind of positive quote.Spitzak (talk) 17:27, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Page looks cleaned up to me
I think this article is cleaned up now. Thoughts? --Wikibojopayne (talk) 16:46, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Voter splitting
The article says that gamesmanship can be used in which voters from one party split their vote to send 2 candidates from their own party to the second round. This implies that a given voter gets 2 votes, which seems unlikely. Is the voter supposed to agree with his buddy that each will vote for a different person from their favored party? the description in the article is unclear how the "vote split" works to their advantage. Edison (talk) 00:49, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

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Difference between versions used in Louisiana and Washington
The article currently makes the following statement: "Louisiana's primary is virtually identical to the Washington state primary system." However, that statement appears to be highly dubious. In Louisiana, the primary is held on the general-election day in November, and the runoff is held in December. In Washington, by contrast, the primary is held before the general election. Even more importantly, in Louisiana there is no runoff at all if a candidate wins an absolute majority in the first round. In Washington, by contrast, the primary and the general election are both always held, so effectively there are always two rounds. My understanding is that if only two candidates file, then the same candidates will square off against each other twice. That wouldn't happen in Louisiana.

More generally, I think the article could use some more details about the system used in Washington State. I'm not an expert, so I won't try to change the article myself, but the article could use some attention from someone knowledgeable in the subject. Kevin Nelson (talk) 03:14, 7 December 2017 (UTC)


 * You are correct, Kevin Nelson. Ballotpedia clearly distinguishes between a primary runoff and a top-two primary; this article, sadly, does not. I recommend splitting the two systems, which are not the same, into two different articles.Wikibojopayne (talk) 14:57, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Nonpartisan blanket primary
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Nonpartisan blanket primary's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Results": From Louisiana gubernatorial election, 2007: Louisiana Secretary of State Retrieved October 21, 2007  From United States House of Representatives elections in Washington, 2014:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 20:47, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Focuses too much on Top-Two
This page as-is focuses heavily on top-two, as if the system cannot elect more. Top-two has serious pathologies, and a quasi-authoritative source (Wikipedia is heavily-influential) biased so strongly for a two-winner system influences political systems which adopt these systems. I'm working on disentangling the number from the format. John Moser (talk) 22:10, 26 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Are there any examples of this being used (or even proposed) where there are more than two winners that go on to the general election? Seems to me to be rather pendantic of a change. I am also worried that if this is ever proposed, it will be given another name other than "Nonpartisan blanket primary" and make all your edits incorrect.Spitzak (talk) 19:16, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Neutrality Issue
Referring to the fact that the system does not empirically increase moderation is not objectively "a problem"--that is a political point of view. We should change the phrasing so it is clear that some might value "moderation" and wish to support approval voting or whatever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.168.189.62 (talk) 17:18, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I think if moderation is an intended goal by many proponents of such a system (such as myself),arguments that it does not succeed in doing this are a legitimate complaint/problem.Spitzak (talk) 19:23, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Top-two is not first-past-the-post
The statement that, "However, when the primary uses first-past-the-post voting, it is highly susceptible to vote splitting" seems a bit out of place here. Top-two is by definition not first-past-the-post. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jordan Mendelson (talk • contribs) 03:06, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Voting Method in Preliminary Round
The intro section currently has a section about voting methods used in the preliminary round, or primary election, of top-two: "Some have proposed using other voting systems in the primary to alleviate this problem, such as the Unified Primary based on approval voting,[4][9][10] or selecting five or more via single transferable vote(emphasis added)." There are several open primary RCV proposals being considered, but none of them call for single transferable vote (STV), as this is wouldn't be appropriate for nominating to a single-seat election. Most of these proposals, like Alaska's Measure 2, or the proposed measure in North Dakota call for a choose-one voting system in the primary (which is actually single non-transferable vote). The source cited in the existing text of this article related to STV is no longer live, and when reviewing the archive it appears to me that it does not meet Wikipedia's Reliable Sources guidelines. I propose removing the mention of STV here, and removing the citation that is no longer active. MAH! (talk) 20:25, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The article for Single Transferable Vote pretty clearly states that it can be used to elect more than one person, so I don't see a problem with this. I think it was put in because quite a few people don't like approval voting and want a scheme where they can clearly say "I like A better than B" for all pairs, even though mathematically this has been shown to not be any better (it also requires changing the voting machines and sending the full details, rather than sums, of votes to the central location). Normally this is called Ranked Choice Voting but that seems to explicity say there is one winner.Spitzak (talk) 20:02, 18 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi Spitzak, I shall elaborate on some of the points that I have raised. The text of the article says "Some have proposed using other voting systems in the primary, such as [...] selecting five or more via single transferable vote." The source cited is the only example that I can find that "proposes" using STV for this purpose, and I question if this source meets Wikipedia's criteria for reliable sources.  When looking at the archive of the source cited, it is unclear who the author is, and to me it appears to be a blog that doesn't meet the criteria for an authoritative source.


 * I also want to clarify that I agree that STV (in addition to a vast variety of other voting methods) could be used in the preliminary round of an open primary. While workable, it would not be a preferable method for nominating to a single-seat office due to the transfer of surplus votes in used STV methods. This is likely why there are no authoritative sources proposing this. Though, I would agree that STV would be an ideal voting method in the preliminary round of an open primary for nominating candidates to a multi-seat general election. The source that I am calling into question actually focuses largely on using STV for nominating twice the number of candidates as there are seats to fill to a multi-winner election, which I agree would be an appropriate application of STV.  The reason why using STV for nomination in a multi-winner election makes sense is that the surplus votes in the nominating round of the multi-winner election are going towards candidates that could win a seat in the general election, even if the candidate whose surplus is being transferred also were to win a seat in the general election.  In the case of a single-seat general election however, using STV in the preliminary round would mean that voters of the candidate who gets the most votes not only get to have their candidate nominated, but a fraction of their vote also gets to help determine which other candidates get to advance and compete in the general election.  Again, workable but not desirable, and operating in a way that is contrary to how realignment in a caucus works.  For single-seat offices, the prefered voting method that uses a ranked ballot in the preliminary round would be what is called bottoms-up RCV.  Bottoms-up RCV doesn't utilize the surplus vote transfers that STV uses.  Instead, candidates not meeting a viability threshold are eliminated starting with the lowest votegetter, and have their votes redistributed to the the subsequent choices as marked on those ballots.  While the literature on bottoms-up RCV is currently sparse, I believe there are enough available references that this could be worked into the article. See paragraph 9,  and MAH! (talk) 00:06, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I made the edit that I proposed, removing the mention of STV. I hope that more sources emerge about analysis of voting methods in the preliminary round of a top-two open primary.  Open primaries are new enough that the authorities on voting methods likely haven't fully considered the ramifications of the open primary reform combined with other voting methods. MAH! (talk) 17:44, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

USA?
Why is this article just focused on the USA. Shouldn't we list California and Washington as subcategories under the USA? Per Wikipedia's Bold, Revert, Discuss policy I will go ahead and add the category, and make California and Washington as subcategory but I hope someone else can talk about nonpartisan party primaries outside the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discuss_cycle Myclob (talk) 01:00, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

How are political parties prevented from reducing the field?
The article states that:

> Also, political parties are not allowed to whittle down the field using their internal techniques (such as party primaries or conventions).

But it doesn't show any mechanism by which this is done. What prevents parties from using an internal mechanism to select one or more candidates and instructing others not to run? RationallyDense (talk) 15:12, 12 March 2024 (UTC)