The Regional Lottery Plan for primary elections
- Posted by Beth on January 6th, 2008 filed in 2008 election, General, Politics Iowa caucuses · New Hampshire · primaries
Jumping off from this post where I (and many of you) complained about the Iowa caucus process, I found that Larry Sabato of UVA’s Center for Politics has also been critical for some time about the process.
I have nothing against the Hawkeye State. To the contrary, my visits there have invariably been pleasant, and my dealings with colleagues and journalists based in Iowa have been delightful.
It’s just that (1) the caucuses this year are way too early; (2) the caucuses and the state are unrepresentative of the broader electorate; and (3) the rules of the caucuses raise real questions about fairness.
EXACTLY.
Here’s what he proposes (you’ll have to scroll down to get to this):
The Congress should be constitutionally required to designate four regions of contiguous states (with contiguity waved for Alaska and Hawaii, and any other stray territories that may one day become states), with the boundaries of each region determined by the present state boundaries. All of the states in each region would hold their nominating events in successive months, beginning in April and ending in July. The two major-party conventions would follow in August. This schedule, all by itself, would cut three months off the too-long process currently prevailing in presidential years.
But how would the order of the regions be determined? In many cases, there would still be a bonus in going first. The establishment of a U.S. Election Lottery, to be held on New Year’s Day of the presidential election year, would yield fairness and also add an element of drama to the beginning of a presidential year. Four color-coded balls, each representing one of the regions, would be loaded into a typical lottery machine, and in short order–the length of a ten-second lottery TV drawing–the regional primary order would be set. Since none of the candidates would know in advance where the political season would begin, part of the permanent presidential campaign would be dismantled.
There’s more at the links, obviously.
Sabato also advocates a new Constitutional Convention and does have some good ideas–like the Regional Lottery plan–but I don’t agree with all of it and I’m naturally resistant to tinkering with the original Constitution anyway. Check it out if you’re interested. That said, I do agree something ought to change in our electoral process–it’s gotten too expensive, too unrepresentative and fundamentally “unfair,” and like he said, way too long.
By the way, if you’re not reading Sabato’s Crystal Ball, you’re missing out on some of the best political analysis out there.
PaulW says:
I have my disagreement with the idea of regional primaries. It does NOT fix the problem of what’s called Front-loading: whoever wins the first primary out of the four gets the Big Mo (and the money), all the other candidates drop out, and the remaining three regions still won’t have genuine choices to make. The lottery system also has no guarantee that different regions get their chances, I don’t see anything that automatically bars a winning region from not getting the first primary again the next election cycle. No, I’m sorry, the only FAIR primary system is where ALL the states, and ALL the voters, get their chance at the same time on the same primary day.
And regarding the campaigns being too long, there’s a simple solution there: make a law via amendment that you can only campaign during the year of election. That means no fundraising, no organization, no exploratory committee, no ads, none of that until Jan.2nd of the election year itself. And make sure there’s no warchests either held in escrow. None of this 3-year campaigns we get (we’ve got guys positioning themselves now for 2012!). None of this perpetual campaigning and fundraising our Congress keeps going through. This should do two things: 1) make the campaigns cheaper (longer campaigning = more money to spend on staffers, posters, buttons, ads, bribes, what have you); 2) make the campaigns more passionate.
In this day and age, with our instant media, you don’t need years to get your message out, just minutes. You can travel the length of this country in hours and days, not months. Set the start of all campaigning Jan. 2nd (sleep in Jan. 1st, dudes). Set the One-Day Primary in June (Flag Day! June 14th), giving you six months to campaign nation-wide. Have the conventions mid-July after the 4th. Have Congressional primary elections the day after Labor Day. Have the final election the first Tuesday of November as always. Eat Turkey, enjoy Festivus, and be done the year! It’s. That. Simple. :)