from Ballot Access News
California Author of “Top-Two Open Primary” Sets Up Organization to Campaign for His Measure
December 26th, 2009
California State Senator Abel Maldonado has established an organization to campaign for the “top-two open primary” measure that will be on the ballot in June 8, 2010. It is “Reform for Change”. Here is its web page.
Brandon Gesicki is listed as the organization’s Executive Director, and also the contact for media inquiries.
Gesicki was Senator Maldonado’s campaign manager when the Senator was re-elected in 2008. He is also the Political Director of the Monterey County Republican Party, and a member of the Monterey County Republican Central Committee. He has also been an employee in Senator Maldonado’s legislative office.
The web page says, “The two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary election will then compete in the General Election. All voters will have the opportunity to vote for any candidate they choose, which is not an option in the current system.” This is the opposite of the truth. The measure says that write-in votes will never be counted in the general election for Congress and state office. The write-in ban in Senator Maldonado’s bill, SB 6, is in section 8606, and says, “A person whose name has been written on the ballot as a write-in candidate at the general election for a voter-nominated office shall not be counted.”
Under existing law, an independent voter is free to ask for a Republican or a Democratic primary ballot in any Congressional or state office primary. Also, if a Republican candidate files as a write-in candidate in the Democratic primary, then registered Democrats can vote for that Republican candidate and their write-ins will be counted. For instance, Maldonado himself filed as a write-in in the 2008 Democratic primary, and he received 533 write-ins from registered Democrats. Another write-in candidate in the 2008 Democratic primary for the same State Senate seat, Dennis Morris, received 2,096 write-ins, overwhelmingly defeating Maldonado for the Democratic nomination. However, Morris didn’t receive the Democratic nomination either, because neither he nor Maldonado met the statutory requirement of polling a number of write-ins equal to 1% of the vote for that office in the last general election.
Morgan Brykein is quite right. With Score Voting (aka Range Voting) this could work well. But most any other method would cause this system to be quite a mess.
Wait a minute Rich Vainer, If you are refering to my post you should know that Washington’s current primary was opposed by both major parties and most third parties. This was approved by the people through popular vote. So do not blame the major parties for this.
Rich one of the sad things behind this was the support the press gave to the idea of the top two.
This illustrates how corrupt the two major parties are and how far they will go to keep their power.
We have it here in Washington. Sometimes it means 2 Dems or 2 Reps. It has only happened is districts where one party has an overwelming majority. But, we have an open congressional race in 2010. There are quite a few candiates already declared. With almost a dozen potential candidates. With this two things could happen. A unified third party may get one of the 2 top spots or 2 from the same party.
Debra is completely correct, and the LPCA unanimously voted to oppose it at the last ExComm (as if we’d vote otherwise on this one!).
The good news is that nobody wants this in any party and the last time it popped up, voters shot it down.
I think this top-two primary would be perfect with range voting, but with our current system, no way.
It’s a lot more than 40% if you count the non-voters.
Those who are against this should point out that about 40% of the population is not a member of the Republican or Democratic parties. Effectively this disenfranchises that 40% of the population.
It sounds scary indeed.
if it flies in Cali , other states will follow when they figure out it’s a successful way to cripple 3rd parties. we need to fight this tooth and nail . Ruth Bennett warned this would happen after Washington.
Somebody stop this asshole. I’m for electoral reform but this is just evil.
Is there a “No on Top-Two” Campaign? If there isn’t, maybe Richard should start one.