Yeah, it's going to be fascinating for sure. I'm sure that the law of unintended consequences will come into play almost immediately, and in ways that people didn't expect. But it's an interesting experiment to be sure - the other recent one that also fascinates me is the states who are starting to pledge that if the electoral votes are out there to do so (i.e. 270 votes worth of states pass similar laws), they will give their electoral votes to the overall national popular vote winner.
And, as a side note, the following entertaining-possibly-to-me-only thought crossed my mind: how awesome would it be if someone actually legally challenged Schwarzenegger's governorship by claiming that he was born in Kenya instead of Austria?
Washington has had the same system for 3 years now, and a similar system about 2 years before that that was tossed out (we had a couple of elections in the middle which were back to the primary general model).
So far, from what I've seen here it doesn't actually give the parties more power because they select who they will back. Seems to be about the same number of incidents of the non-backed candidate getting into the final election.
What does happen here a bunch more is where the final two candidates are both from the same party. Seattle in particular has some very liberal districts. In the past, that meant they'd have a choice between a center-left democrat and a center-right republican. Now they get a choice between a progressive democrat and a center-left democrat.
Ok I'm trying to find the link but failing. I read this on some newspaper. Unintended consequence #1: Third parties will stop being able to get public funds. Basically a party can only be considered a party if they get a certain percentage of the vote on a general election. Since third party will never, well hardly ever, be on a general election ballot (only top two will get there) they will never get the required percentage to remain a party and poof. They're gone.
This setup can result in vote-splitting among candidates who take popular positions, resulting in candidates with unpopular positions being the ones who advance to the general election. Consider, for example, the 2002 French presidential election, where a right-wing president and a far right loon got first and second place. The moderates and liberals split their vote between 13 other candidates.
The way it is right now, there is little to no vote splitting, because there is one representative from each ideological grouping in the general election (more-or-less).
It seems to me that this is likely to result in government that is less representative of the people. It's a major change, and I think it is a real failure of the California system that it can be enacted by an election that was largely ignored by huge swathes of the electorate. (Of course, I think popular voting on laws is a real failure of the California system, too).
Greater turnout for the primary election was a big reason that I voted for this. I think better turnout might prevent some of the bad petition-initiated propositions from getting passed in the primary.
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And, as a side note, the following entertaining-possibly-to-me-only thought crossed my mind: how awesome would it be if someone actually legally challenged Schwarzenegger's governorship by claiming that he was born in Kenya instead of Austria?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
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So far, from what I've seen here it doesn't actually give the parties more power because they select who they will back. Seems to be about the same number of incidents of the non-backed candidate getting into the final election.
What does happen here a bunch more is where the final two candidates are both from the same party. Seattle in particular has some very liberal districts. In the past, that meant they'd have a choice between a center-left democrat and a center-right republican. Now they get a choice between a progressive democrat and a center-left democrat.
Anyway, the sky hasn't fallen here.
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Unintended consequence #1:
Third parties will stop being able to get public funds. Basically a party can only be considered a party if they get a certain percentage of the vote on a general election. Since third party will never, well hardly ever, be on a general election ballot (only top two will get there) they will never get the required percentage to remain a party and poof. They're gone.
I wish I could find the article.
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This setup can result in vote-splitting among candidates who take popular positions, resulting in candidates with unpopular positions being the ones who advance to the general election. Consider, for example, the 2002 French presidential election, where a right-wing president and a far right loon got first and second place. The moderates and liberals split their vote between 13 other candidates.
The way it is right now, there is little to no vote splitting, because there is one representative from each ideological grouping in the general election (more-or-less).
It seems to me that this is likely to result in government that is less representative of the people. It's a major change, and I think it is a real failure of the California system that it can be enacted by an election that was largely ignored by huge swathes of the electorate. (Of course, I think popular voting on laws is a real failure of the California system, too).
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I think better turnout might prevent some of the bad petition-initiated propositions from getting passed in the primary.
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