From Richard Winger at Ballot Access News:
Only three minor party members were on the California November 2014 ballot for partisan office. In each case, only one person had filed in the primary, and the three minor party members had then each filed to be a write-in candidate in the June primary. As the only candidates running in June against the single ballot-listed candidate, the three declared write-in candidates obviously placed second, and qualified for November.
In U.S. House district 44, in western Los Angeles County, Peace & Freedom candidate Adam Shbeita polled 13.0% against incumbent Democrat Janice Hahn.
In Assembly district 5, in the Sierra Nevada mountains east of the San Joaquin Valley, Libertarian Patrick Hogan polled 25.2% against incumbent Republican Frank Bigelow.
In Assembly district 79, in San Diego County, American Independent Party member George R. Williams polled 38.7% against incumbent Democrat Shirley Weber. This is the largest percentage of the vote any AIP member has ever received for a partisan office in a California general election.
Yep. Plus all the hundreds of other candidates we had on the ballot in past elections, versus three this time.
Bingo!
Plus everything Jed said.
The party bureaucracies paid some lip service to opposing it but did not do much of anything to stop it. Meanwhile some of their top establishment political leaders like Schwarzenegger and Maldonado campaigned hard for it. In Arizona and Montana the Republican establishment openly admitted they want(ed) to stop the Libertarian Party in particular using top two.
So the token “opposition” of the big party bureaucracies, while their elected leaders openly promoted it, did a lot more to pass top two than to stop it. Should I be surprised?
In November 2010, before California had a top-two system, 540,000 voters voted for a minor party candidate in the general election for Governor. In November 2014, zero voters voted for a minor party candidate for Governor of California…because it the law forbade any other votes. California voters were the only voters in the U.S. who either had to vote for a Republican or a Democrat in the general election for all the statewide offices, or they couldn’t vote at all in the general election.
In California, when Top Two was on the ballot, all of the ballot qualified parties opposed it. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party both opposed it, and so did the alternative parties. Part of the reason it passed is because people wanted to show their opposition to the Democratic and Republican Party leaderships.
Top two requires a tremendous effort in the primary, when most voters are not paying attention. If you can’t put a tremendous effort in the primary, you are shut out of the November election, which is the election that matters.
Unless alternative parties have candidates on the November ballot, they effectively don’t exist in the minds of the voters. That is why top two must be repealed.
“Maybe it is time for third parties to rethink their opposition to open primaries.”
We’re not. We’re against top-two. Please learn the difference.
“The big two are against it”
No they aren’t.
“because they don’t want third parties on a level playing field with them in the primary.”
They don’t, and alternative parties are not on a level playing field under top-two. The candidates listed above made the ballot because they were the only other candidate running in their respective races. They didn’t somehow beat the other duopoly candidates.
“Third parties are against it because – please tell me again why third parties are against it.”
Because it shuts alternative candidates out of the general election. The candidates listed above are small potatoes compared to the large numbers if independent & alternative party candidates whose campaigns ended after the primaries & weren’t able to continue to promote their message & ideals through November.
Maybe it is time for third parties to rethink their opposition to open primaries. The big two are against it because they don’t want third parties on a level playing field with them in the primary. Third parties are against it because – please tell me again why third parties are against it.