Wandering Reveries

The Fund for Jobs and Growth - a Washington D.C. super PAC - is suing New Jersey’s Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) to allow the group raise unlimited funds based on the Citizens United decision. In March, the ELEC ruled that the Fund could not receive unlimited contributions from individuals if there purpose is make independent expenditures to influence New Jersey elections. This is the third ruling dealing with independent expenditures, and in the prior rulings, the ELEC determined that the groups did not have a “major purpose” of influencing New Jersey elections (Source). New Jersey has not allowed super PACs to raise unlimited funds, and thus, the Fund is challenging the constitutionality of the state’s requirement that the Fund register and abide by contribution limits.

Some South Carolina Republicans are seeking a party rule change to prevent Democrats and RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) from participating in the state’s nominating process, which is currently an open primary - meaning anyone can participate. The change would allow the GOP nominees to be chosen at the state convention rather than through a primary. The rule is necessary - according to its proponents - to ensure that true conservatives are chosen as their nominees. The rule change would certainly doom the interest in, and importance of (alleged), South Carolina as the first Southern primary, as the rule change opponents allege. Of course, this isn’t important to the proponents as maintaining ideological purity. They’ll need 75 percent of the state convention delegates to approve the rule change for it to be effective. If it is approved, the reaction from the RNC and the state parties should be interesting.

Last November, I discussed AZ’s rejection of a top two primary and made the following comment about California’s new primary system:

My guess is that you’re not going to see much moderation as a result of this system.

Well that guess is apparently correct. The folks over at Monkey Cage did with California what I had not done with Louisiana, i.e., look at the ideology of the candidates in connection with the election outcomes. They found that the top two primary did not have a moderating influence on candidates. The primary issue seemed to be that voters did not distinguish between centrists candidates and more extreme candidates, often rating them the same on an ideological scale. In other cases, voters did not try to locate the centrists, instead relying on their own partisanship to make their decision.

Perhaps open primaries could work in correlation with other reforms, as well as an educated electorate; however, they do not provide greater moderation on their own.

See also: Security Blanket Primaries

I’ve had this article about ballot design in my queue for about a month, and I finally got around to reading it. Very interesting read that explains why ballot design in the U.S. is so complex.

1. Local control: There is no national ballot design. Instead ballot design is left to the plethora of local government entities who control elections.
2. Voting machines: There are as many different types of voting machines as there are ballot designs and aren’t really conducive to a simple ballot design.
3. Referendums: Ballot design is further complicated by referendum questions, which are often not written in an understandable manner.
4. Electoral Complexity: The number of offices, as well as the explanations for them, e.g., Presidential electors, makes ballot design difficult.
5. Languages: Because of the diversity of the U.S. population, our ballots often have multiple languages.

None of these issues offers easy solutions, because in some cases, such as with language, they exist for a good reason. Still, it helps to understand the issue.