My Proposal for Democratic Primary Reform

[ElectionsGuy]

A nationwide primary vote on a single day with 15% viability rule and 50% needed to win outright, followed by runoffs with greater thresholds to narrow the field. No delegates, no caucuses. The nomination can be secured in any one of these elections with 50%+1 of the votes. The convention may be sometime after in June/July/August. No more contested conventions, the nominee will be clear and undisputed.

I'm thinking something like this for the schedule:

March 3rd - first election - 15% viability
April 7th - second election - 25% viability
May 5th - third election - top-two
June 2nd - final election

Here's an made-up example:

Biden - 32% --> advance
Sanders - 21% --> advance
Warren - 18% --> advance
Buttigieg - 16% --> advance
Klobuchar - 12% --> does not advance

Biden - 40% --> advance
Sanders - 28% --> advance
Warren - 20%
Buttigieg - 12%

Biden - 56%
Sanders - 44%

Any questions? What are your thoughts? Feel free to share your ideas about how to reform the Democratic primary as well.

[AGA]

I like this. The caucus is a clunky, inconvenient system that needs to be abolished. Also the fact that Iowa and New Hampshire have so much more pull than states like New York and New Jersey is ridiculous. Also the instant runoff is likely to more accurately reflect the desires of the people. Main problem is that it would be harder to campaign across the whole country.

[Frodo]

What hope do candidates with limited resources have within this new system that is so front-loaded?   Or do you just not give a damn?

[OBD]

Sounds smart but couldn't you just do IRV, and hold the election later, and have the same effect? Holding four national primary elections is expensive and invites outside interference.

[brucejoel99]

I think the best option would just be a 1-day, nationwide ranked-choice primary held at the start of the year. It'd minimize divisions as well as give more time for the nominee to focus on the opposition.

It'll never happen, but hey, one can dream, right?

[Slander and/or Libel]

I think the worry with ranked choice would be that people could possibly change their minds after votes are cast, but that can always happen. I think one national primary, ranked choice voting nationwide, with ranked pairs tallying.

[Epaminondas]

You cannot have single day voting on a working day and expect consistent high turnout.
The choice of a Tuesday is heavily rooted in the Founding Fathers' desire to disfranchise poorer, working citizens. A change is long overdue.

Move Election Day to a Sunday. Better yet, making ED a bank holiday would stress the importance of the event in people's mind.

[brucejoel99]

The choice of a Tuesday is heavily rooted in the Founding Fathers' desire to disfranchise poorer, working citizens. A change is long overdue.

Ummmmm, it was in 1845 (so, long after the Founding Fathers' time) when Congress decided that Election Day would be held on a Tuesday, & if anything, it was out of a desire to enfranchise the working class.

At that time, first of all, there was no weekend. Sunday was the Sabbath, & the other 6 days were work days. People weren't supposed to travel on the Sabbath, so the election had to be held on a day that would allow people to not need to travel on the Sabbath. Since polling places were sometimes a ways away from people & they might have to travel on foot or by horse, Tuesday allows them to travel Monday, vote Tuesday, travel Wednesday, and return home on that day or the next. Then the subsequent days of the week could be used for counting up the votes.

[Illiniwek]

A nationwide ranked choice primary is clearly the way to go. I could definitely see it happen at some point since its the party's primary and not a general election.

[Slander and/or Libel]

You cannot have single day voting on a working day and expect consistent high turnout.
The choice of a Tuesday is heavily rooted in the Founding Fathers' desire to disfranchise poorer, working citizens. A change is long overdue.

Move Election Day to a Sunday. Better yet, making ED a bank holiday would stress the importance of the event in people's mind.

So have widespread early voting and no-excuse absentee voting or just have everybody vote by mail.

[ElectionsGuy]

Thanks for the replies. I do think RCV would be more efficient, the only issues might be people aren't used to voting that way (would take a lot of thought/planning for your average voter who's new to it), and also how the results could easily be susceptible to conspiracy theories because of how the reallocation goes (unless there's 100% transparency behind that, which would be a lot of required information).

[Xing]

This would be significantly better than the system we have, though I'd echo the points above and say that a nationwide primary with RCV would possibly be even better.

[cris01us]

A nationwide primary vote on a single day with 15% viability rule and 50% needed to win outright, followed by runoffs with greater thresholds to narrow the field. No delegates, no caucuses. The nomination can be secured in any one of these elections with 50%+1 of the votes. The convention may be sometime after in June/July/August. No more contested conventions, the nominee will be clear and undisputed.

I'm thinking something like this for the schedule:

March 3rd - first election - 15% viability
April 7th - second election - 25% viability
May 5th - third election - top-two
June 2nd - final election

I like it, but I hope the system doesn't need so make election days.  I would worry about "voter weariness, or ability for folks to go vote so many times.  I think at a minimum there should be two "Voting Holiday's" each year nationally, one for the Primaries and one in November.