Crossover voting in the primaries
I’ve always been annoyed that in some states crossover voting is allowed in the state’s primary. That is, voters affiliated with the opposite party can vote in their opponents’ primary, which leaves a great deal of opportunity for mischief.
And yet, I’m not sure how to control for it. Even where crossover voting is not allowed (so-called “closed” primary states), a determined person can ordinarily change party affiliations for the purpose of the primary vote—although usually not on the day of the primary; it requires a bit of advanced planning—and then change back again later. Different states have different rules about it (see this for the state-by-state breakdown).
Democratic and Republican primaries are held on the same day, and a voter can only participate in one or the other. By voting in the opposite party’s primary a voter gives up the chance to vote in his/her own party’s contest. But in years when one party will be nominating an incumbent and there is no contested primary in that party (such as, for example, the Democrats in 2012) and the other party has a hotly-contested primary, the temptation for members of the party with the incumbent to cross over and dirty the waters is increased.
This year, although there’s no incumbent for the Democrats, Hillary Clinton is nearly being treated as one. Back when Bernie Sanders seemed more competitive with her, earlier in the season, I was thinking that a competitive Democratic race would have the advantage of discouraging Democratic crossover votes in the Republican primary. As Sanders’ stock has fallen, the possibility of those strategic crossover votes by Democrats increases, and the crossover voters are likely to vote for whoever they think will damage the Republicans most (I leave it to your imagination to decide which person that might be).
This year the Republican contest is such that Republicans are less likely to cross over and use their one and only votes to play games with the Democratic race, simply because the Republican race is so hotly contested and most people feel so strongly about it.
The days of the smoke-filled rooms did away with these problems. But they raised other problems. If the establishment still chose the nominee (with or without the smoke), we’d be seeing candidate Jeb Bush in the ascendance, and we’d have had no say in the matter.
That’s how Thad Cochran won the Mississippi primary in 2014: The GOPe urged democrats to cross over and vote for him and apparently a lot of them did. I haven’t forgotten.
@snopercod: Even for politicians, that was coldly cynical.
I’m hoping that Cruz can win the nomination, but I am constantly asking myself the question, at what point do we have to admit that if trying to reform the Republican Party via the ballot box is our only choice, then the situation is hopeless?
The people to look out for are those who may normally vote Democratic, but decide to vote for Trump because they sincerely like and support him. And with the crowds he gets, Trump may also bring in people who don’t normally vote in primaries, just to support him in a positive way.
Maine has a caucus system (which Romney won in both 2008 & 2012), so fewer opportunities for cross-over votes. However, last time I went to one of those things, while everyone was up front listening to the speeches, I hung out in back and filled my pockets with free donuts from Dunkin’s.
Open primaries are an exercise in fraud, but caucuses are worse.
In 2008, my wife, still registered as a Democrat, voted for Hillary over Obama. She loathed them both, but voting GOP in Cuyahoga county is just spitting into the wind.
Cross-over voting lets the opposition party influence their competition. I suspect it was one reason why John McCain was able to stage a comeback in 2007; Democrats voting for him as the easiest candidate for Obama to beat.
“voting GOP in Cuyahoga county is just spitting into the wind.” Not necessarily. Ohio is a “winner-take-all” state, so whomever wins the GOP primary gets all 66 of Ohio’s delegates to the Republican convention. The delegates choose the president, not the voters. Pretty good write up of this convoluted system at http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/R-Alloc.phtml
…and we’d have had no say in the matter.
and what makes you think that we do? Not one main newspaper in the NYC area reports Trump as a respected candidate. they focus on him, to the negation of the others, and ALL their reporting uses funny names, half truths, claims of lies that are not lies, and a whole lot more, including cartoon voice bubbles with made up “funny” comments, and on and on. with Bramhall being the biggest left leaning to the point of V8 juice angles as he walks pushing the party line… They also focus on trump so as not to focus on Hillary, and the un-electable Bernie
the rhetoric is so meaningless and without reference that it just amounts to which candidate do they use the most “bad words” with as if that is how the public thinks
digging you can see humongous turnout for trump, to capacity and overflowing. they try to make it appear the same with hillary, except that there are other photos of the same empty hall, with everyone jammed up against the stage so a photo from the back of the crowd, not the back of the room looks like its packed. (i noticed the Chinese doing shen yun for falun dafa do the same, you just have to notice that they move people in the audience, then film the full section)
A lot of this serves to bury
Here is a quick summary of the Daily News today
Cover is a cartoony mockup of various images put together to make a kind of montage. you have number 7 of the new york team doing a slam dunk and his name is “Jaihadi Wayne” with the head of the the head of the NRA being cut out, and put on a jihad Islamic body holding a ak47 and a red turban.
The headline reads:
Unafraid of Jihadi Wayne and NRA, NBA, Stars take aim at gun scourge with new adds GUTS vs. NUTS.
This is what is NEWS and claimed not to be propaganda, but its ALL propaganda, given the imagry, the titles, the naming, etc… there is absolutely no news here other than the facts that make up the foundation of the cartoons, and bs… (why read the rest of the paper?)
open up to the first page…
Attack the Vaping industry for getting around all the tobacco laws, and built an alternative industry. Now, they claim that this is marketed to kids, as that gives fascists permission to control an industry, the city soviet is asking for investigations to basically destroy profits
[the same is being done with airbnb which is screwing with the rent control and all those soviet/council games that make them millions. as well as being upset that their monopoly expensive dictated taxi business is being harmed by a free market upstart that people love as they have grown to hate the medalion system that makes owners rich off the back of hard working immigrants, peter vallone took this up after his father. huge kickbacks in queens and silent partnerships the way tamany used to make cash off of alcohol speakeasys]
They are going after one of trumps apartment projects for not allowing the handicapped to have “emotional support” dogs… [the site has no connection to donald trump, it was built by his father in the 1960s]
Page 4 starts the GUTS vs NUTS coverage. of course, calling the side you like has having courage and choosing the other side you dont like as being nuts is a fair, honest, no side picking way to hae news coverage.
leading to what neo is saying, it is irrelevant, because there is no way the general public at their common interest level is going to have a personal selection that is actually theirs. if they are not outraged by such coverage and they read it, and dont work against it, there is no way that their opinions are their own.
in fact, the left is parading every successful person in the public sphere under threat of being on the bad side of this kind of press.. even if they wanted to put their own opinion up, they wont, as it would cost them too much money and their pubic wont side with them for being brave as its not brave to side that way…
in the background you can hear the red queen yelling
off with their heads
The first is a “toy gun exchange”, where mostly boys can turn in their toys to get board games and other toys. The north Koreans would be proud as the NSDP would be for using children this way…
Stag arms has to be sold because they had 62 weapons not filed correctly when the state came in and went through them with a fine tooth comb to find anything they can to penalize the company. [this is similar to how they harmed gibson guitar for their legal use of woods, while ignoring other companies who donated to the fascist/communist party (dems)]
the NBA and Football sports entities are trying to avoid being attacked by complying and spending money on behalf of the left… but they dont get that this will only lead to endless series of profits being used politically and not counting as donations, as they use their pull to set political agendas having little to do with basketball or football… the idea is to turn people off to these manly sports the way that they used up the newspapers… once gutted, thats that… not much sports in communist states.. eh?
the sad part is that they have no desire to actually do this the legal way the constitution affords. and that the result of this is the end of the constitution other than the parts they like… while ignoring the parts they dont
ultimately, towards neos point, what difference does that all make when this is going on in a constant stream like a syfy channel horror flick about dystopian futures?
the whole of the NBA is now being politicised for black rights (no white players?), guns, drugs, and onwards…
EVERYTHING FOR THE STATE, TO THE STATE, FROM THE STATE…
so it doesnt matter whether there is a primary vote that cheats or not, as your soaking in crapola to the point where its like air that stinks and you have acclimated to it. its impossible to pick up a common news anything and get fair balanced news on any subject the left wants to pump you for.
even soviet russia was not this bombastically wacko
two pages later its hillary pretending to be spanis abuela after pretending to be southern, after pretending she has a marraige, etc… on and on.
if one could take a step back or travel from 1968 before the feminist revolution, to now, one may have had a different opionion once they saw the newspapers, tv shows, communist rhetoric, safe spaces, nazi social justice as normal, jews are nazis, microagressions, the forbidding the playing of white christmass as a trigger and code for white supremecy, families are almost destroyed as a concept, and underage kids sell selfies for profit to pedophiles and classmates…
there is so much more it would, if listed out, slam a older person so hard as to what feminism mostly changed (and if you dont think so, go look it up. where else does it get transmitted and who else is feared enough to comply? heck, mandating corporate board make up to quotas is not enough power? )
sigh
ok, delete me…