It’s already an uphill battle for Libertarian and Green party candidates in Arizona, but no matter what they have a place on the ballot.
However, leaders of both parties say a measure on the November ballot threatens to butt them out of elections for good.
“Third parties will be completely gone,” said Warren Severin, chairman of Arizona’s Libertarian Party.
Proposition 121, the Open Elections/Open Government Act, would replace the current partisan primary system with a single primary that advances the top vote-getters regardless of party.
Severin and Angel Torres, co-chair of the state’s Green Party, argue that this system would make it nearly impossible for their candidates to advance into the general election because they’d have to beat out major party candidates.
“If you are a Libertarian or a Green voter your candidates are almost guaranteed not to move on to the general election,” said Torres, who also is a candidate for state House in a Phoenix-area district.
They also say Proposition 121 would dramatically boost the number of signatures third party candidates would have to gather, making it more difficult for them to qualify for the primary.
At present, the number of signatures required to get into a party’s primary is one half of 1 percent of those registered in that party across Arizona for statewide races or in a district for legislative or congressional races.
Proposition 121 would make the signature requirement a function of total votes cast in the previous election and require the same number of signatures for all candidates.
“Third party candidates who have neither large supporter bases nor lots of money will be left out of the picture, especially in larger districts where larger numbers of signatures are required,” Severin said.
Barbara Norrander, a political science professor at the University of Arizona, said a top-two system could harm third parties.
“It would make it much more difficult to get on the general election ballot because they would have to get more votes than they have been getting in prior elections,” Norrander said.
Severin, the Libertarian chairman, said the main goal of third parties isn’t winning but providing voters with new ideas. He said a top-two primary would kill any chance of third parties participating in debates, the main vehicle for sharing their ideas.
“Our opportunity to do what really is our goal vanishes,” Severin said.
The Open Government Committee, which put the measure on the ballot, contends the change would produce more moderate candidates, increase primary election turnout and offer independents a better chance to compete.
Former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson, one of the group’s leaders, said it’s “false” to say that third parties would wither if Proposition 121 passes. They’d just have to gather the same number of signatures as any other candidate and fight to make it to the general election, he said.
“We are not doing this for any party,” Johnson said. “We are not doing it for them, nor are we not doing it to hurt them. We are doing it for the voters.”
Joe Pamelia, a Libertarian candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in District 4, said unless a candidate in a top-two system is either with a major party or extremely wealthy he or she doesn’t stand a chance of making it to the general election.
“[Top two] says to me, ‘I’m sorry you weren’t able to make enough votes to even compete with us, you’re out the door and so we hold the power and we are going to continue to hold power,’” Pamelisa said.
Johnson said the signature requirement change proposed in Proposition 121 would help independent candidates because they currently need a greater number of signatures to get into the general election.
The requirement for independents to get on a general election ballot, because independents don’t have primaries, is 3 percent of registered voters not affiliated with an established party.
For example, to get on the ballot in the 2012 Arizona’s statewide elections Republicans had to gather 5,671 signatures and Democrats 4,765, but independents had to gather 31,111, according to Matthew Roberts, communications director at the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.
Proposition 121 doesn’t specify what percentage of the total votes cast would be required, but the language says it would be an “amount to be established by law.”
Severin, the Libertarian chairman, said he agrees there should be something done to help independents, but not at the expense of third parties.
“The result will be that very few independents, Libertarians and Greens will make it onto the primary ballot,” he said. “And none of those will ever see a general election ballot.”
Severin and Torres, the state Green Party leader, say what they fear would happen in Arizona is already happening in California, where voters approved a similar top-two system in 2010.
A report by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California said districts with no minor party candidates were 72 percent in 2012, up from 53 percent in 2010.
Eric McGhee, a policy fellow with the group and co-author of the report, said the change in California has hurt third party candidates.
“The main message is that this reform has been hard on them,” McGhee said. “And there is no getting around that.”
David Berman, a senior policy fellow at Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy, said a top-two system in Arizona would put third parties in an “uncomfortable position” and cost them visibility in the general election.
“Given their failure to gather in many votes or win offices even under the existing system, the overall impact of top-two on the success of third parties may be minimal,” Berman said in an email.
az2008 posted at 10:06 am on Sat, Oct 20, 2012.
The proposition contributes to the problem of "vote splitting" and someone winning with much less than 50% of the vote. For example, if candidates A through F are running in a primary, many of us might prefer "B," but not enough to win. Our second choice might be "A" but, because we didn't vote that way, a fluke candidate "C" wins.
A better solution would be "tier-rank" or "preferential" balloting. You can google for it. Such a ballot allows you to specify your 1st to nth choices. At the time of tabulation, the process is like an "instant runoff." Everyone's 1st choice is tabulated. If no candidate had over 50%, the process adds the 2nd choices, and so on until the first candidate with over 50% is identified.
In this case, it would be best applied in the general election. Let parties continue to nominate their candidates however they wish. Let them hold precinct elections (or county, state conventions) on their own dime. Going into the general, there should be only one candidate from each party for each open seat. At that point, hold a general election and use the "instant runoff" ballot technique.
The proposition under discussion is really a twisted attempt to accomplish that. Instead of keeping party nominations within the party's domain, it makes it a public process. And, not only does it *not* address the problem of vote splitting, it makes it even worse. (Instead of 2-3 candidates within a party, you'll choose from a dozen or more, creating the potential for someone to advance to the general election with just 10% of the vote.).
Whoever is behind this proposition didn't have a great deal of intelligence (IMO).
DrJCA1 posted at 9:59 pm on Sat, Oct 20, 2012.
Gosh, why do we need 3rd or 4th parties. After all, the democrats and republicans have done so well for us of over the past few decades. Now, I'll go and put down my hookah which is filled with a mixture of marijuana and magic mushrooms.
soricobob posted at 6:31 am on Sun, Oct 21, 2012.
Seriously, do you think that's a better argument than having 2 Republicans or 2 Democrats running?
Ted Downing posted at 8:26 am on Sun, Oct 21, 2012.
Read Proposition 121 (less than 2 pages). It ends taxpayers paying for political parties to SELECT who we can and cannot vote for in the general election. Voters will ELECT and nominate who is on their general election ballot. That ballot belongs to we the people, not any political party.
And, isn't there something inconsistent about the Libertarian leader insisting he has a right to a government-financed primary election?
az2008 posted at 5:43 pm on Sun, Oct 21, 2012.
Ted, the solution isn't to open up the parties to anyone who wants to vote. If you don't want the public to fund partisan nomination contests, then require that parties nominate their candidates to the general election using whatever process they like (convention, mail-in ballots, etc.).
The problem with Prop 121 is that it doesn't fix the problem of "throwing your vote away" due to a lack of runoff. In effect, it compounds the problem by opening up the primary to non-party voters who can cause a minority candidate to ascend to the general election on < 50% of the vote, perhaps entirely due to non-party voters voting for that candidate (but, that candidate wouldn't receive 50% if s/he had to have a runoff).
Then, in the general, we still don't have a runoff.
It would have been a lot better to leave parties to nominate their candidates any way they wish, and tackle the runoff problem. The day we have "instant runoff" ballots is the day we'll have 3rd parties. People will be able to vote for a 3rd party candidate without worrying that they're "throwing their vote away." (They could still vote for the "lessor of 2 evils" as their 2nd choice.).
Instead of proposing a *REAL* solution, all we got is an obfuscated primary with even MORE vote splitting (candidates winning on 20% of the vote).