I agree that the primary system in Mass is bad and needs fixing. I believe in an all-party primary because I don’t think the government should be running party primaries. I looked at the website mentioned https://partnersindemocracy.us/ but it’s out of date. Are there any other organizations in Mass actively focused on promoting all-party primaries?
I see real democratic possibilities with this proposal. As a Texas Democrat applying this to my state which is dominated by Republicans, I think fusion voting will empower the less extreme parts of the Republican party. Which, while that may not be my political choice, it might have spared us abortion bans and school vouchers as neither of those are actually popular with rank and file Texas Republicans.
As it stands now, not only are Democrats sort of left voiceless, we have recently lost the reasonable (ish) Republicans at the local level who would advocate for things like women's health, clean water, good schools, etc because Texas Republicans recently purged all the reasonable Republicans. For instance, those reasonable Republicans opposed the recent gerrymander to give Trump five more seats because they knew it was going to be a dummymander.
Then, also, assuming we continue to be dominated by Republicans here, we Democrats can see which Republicans are more reasonable. We can get together a coalition of, for instance, parents for strong public schools and endorse those Republicans. The problem of one party states is they cause the ruling party embrace machine politics and eventually become more extreme than the population. Again, see, e.g. Texas Republicans.
Thank you, Cynthia—I really appreciate this comment! The pattern you're describing in Texas is exactly the pathology one-party dominance produces in states around the country: competition collapses, elections become weaker tools of democratic accountability, and voters lose the ability to see and shape what their own party is doing. It takes different forms in different states, but I agree that the underlying structure is the same. I'm hopeful that if we pass our All-Party Primaries initiative in Massachusetts, the model will spread—and I'm glad to know there are fellow travelers in Texas thinking about how to bring responsible competition back onto the ballot.
I like the idea, but it needs to be combined with ranked choice voting, or you get what may be a disaster in California, where the dozen Democrats wipe each other out and a Democratic state ends up with 2 Republicans on the ballot for governor.
Great idea! Only, allowing a group as small as 50 persons to endorse a candidate and have it posted on the ballot seems like an invitation to trouble. The endorsements are likely to pile up and many may be from groups which seek to distort the candidate’s real message. The endorsements should be carefully curated so as to avoid abuse. I think that among other things endorsements should be limited to those from organizations with long standing activities in matters of public policy.
Without Ranked Choice, top 2 will most often scenario is three candidates running. Vote-splitting most likely produces one candidate that is popular, and one candidate supported by the minority, creating a scenario in which the debate in the final round is popular ideas vs. unpopular ideas, rather than implementation differences of popular ideas. This is a terrible system of reducing choices for the voters, and I strongly oppose it.
Hi Elaine — Thanks for your comment. Always appreciate being in this conversation with you and working together for Ranked Choice Voting in MA. I agree that adding RCV would improve All-Party Primaries. I want to push back on your broader point, though, because I think the dynamic you're describing is exactly the pathology we suffer from in MA. And it's what our All-Party Primaries initiative is meant to address.
Partisan primaries in a state like MA, where most voters prefer the Democratic Party, tend to produce general elections where only one candidate has a meaningful shot at majority support. We have the fewest contested general elections of any state, and even many contested elections are landslides. As a result MA doesn't get public debates between popular ideas—there's no debate to be had in a pre-determined general election, and only 17% of voters go to the polls in the primary.
Top 2 states like California don't fit that picture on average. They have more competitive general elections than we do, and their contested races are closer. That's what happens when you move the decisive contest to the election where the majority of voters already show up.
You're right that Top 2 alone can sometimes produce vote-splitting dynamics, and I take that concern seriously. But that's precisely why our initiative goes further than California does, by combining Top 2 with aggregate fusion voting. Fusion puts candidates' coalition support on the ballot—voters can see which wing of a coalition they're actually supporting, and candidates can see which constituencies they depend on. That makes both policy differences and electoral viability visible on the ballot. Voters with more legible coalition information will be better positioned to consolidate around viable candidates who represent them well.
The result is an election that's more competitive and more legible at both stages. And I'd ask you to measure any reform against the baseline we're actually starting from in MA: a system that produces almost no real general-election debates between popular ideas at all, and much higher levels of vote splitting in the few open races we get. To fix that you need high turnout, more than one candidate with a meaningful shot at a majority, and legible differences between them. That's what All-Party Primaries will deliver.
RE: " Fusion puts candidates' coalition support on the ballot—voters can see which wing of a coalition they're actually supporting, and candidates can see which constituencies they depend on." - Can you elaborate about this? How does this listing work, how much control does the candidate have over it?
Thanks Steve. Under our initiative, the listing functions as a joint request of the endorsing organization and the candidate. Any organization with 50 registered voters has access to the mechanism, and they choose whether to make endorsements before the primary. If the candidate accepts the endorsement, then it appears on the ballot. The candidate's own political party registration will always appear on the ballot - if you're a registered Democrat, Republican, etc. voters will see that.
So, in the example ballot shown in the piece, you can see that Bella Bonilla is a Democrat who has been endorsed by the Social Democratic Party and the Abundance Party (all fictitious for explanatory use). That means that both the Social Democratic Party and the Abundance Party have endorsed Bonilla through a vote of their executive committee (or any mechanism by which the executive committee delegates that authority in the organization's charter), and Bonilla has indicated to the Secretary of State that she accepts the endorsement. Then voters can see how groups and coalitions are lining up behind the candidates. That effect will be strongest for groups that the voters already know and understand.
I looked more carefully at the sample ballot shown in the piece, all of the "endorsing organizations" are parties, that's fine I guess. I'm guessing you're referring to some mechanism in MA to register a party, and that only parties registered in MA would be listed (and only if everyone agreed). So there won't be random orgs, unions, etc being listed as endorsements? Is this whole mechanism pretty immune to gaming it? I'm just assuming most candidates will have Dem or Rep listed, maybe some Greens or Libertarians or whatever. But won't there be a motivation to come up with more or less fake "parties" so the candidate can have a more interesting endorsement list on the ballot?
Low bar to make a new "minor party" called "designations" in MA. It takes 50 registered voters to create a "political designation" in Massachusetts and change their registration status to that designation. Right now Green Party and Libertarians are designations (among others). There are restrictions (can't use part of the name of a major party and can't be longer than three words) and the SoS has some discretion on it. Candidates need to accept the endorsements.
It’s a low bar, but as you say the signers have to agree to change their personal status to that designation. Can be easily undone later, but still a bit of a public commitment. If this whole thing passes it will be interesting to see if there is then a great upsurge in registered parties, including, possibly, some very silly ones.
https://coalitionforhealthydemocracy.org/
Thanks! https://coalitionforhealthydemocracy.org/ Is exactlywhat I was looking for! I’ve signed up to the alert list and I’ll be following the campaign. Good luck!
I agree that the primary system in Mass is bad and needs fixing. I believe in an all-party primary because I don’t think the government should be running party primaries. I looked at the website mentioned https://partnersindemocracy.us/ but it’s out of date. Are there any other organizations in Mass actively focused on promoting all-party primaries?
Thanks Steve! The campaign is building a great cross-ideological coalition. You can learn more about organizations working on it here: https://coalitionforhealthydemocracy.org/endorsements/
I see real democratic possibilities with this proposal. As a Texas Democrat applying this to my state which is dominated by Republicans, I think fusion voting will empower the less extreme parts of the Republican party. Which, while that may not be my political choice, it might have spared us abortion bans and school vouchers as neither of those are actually popular with rank and file Texas Republicans.
As it stands now, not only are Democrats sort of left voiceless, we have recently lost the reasonable (ish) Republicans at the local level who would advocate for things like women's health, clean water, good schools, etc because Texas Republicans recently purged all the reasonable Republicans. For instance, those reasonable Republicans opposed the recent gerrymander to give Trump five more seats because they knew it was going to be a dummymander.
Then, also, assuming we continue to be dominated by Republicans here, we Democrats can see which Republicans are more reasonable. We can get together a coalition of, for instance, parents for strong public schools and endorse those Republicans. The problem of one party states is they cause the ruling party embrace machine politics and eventually become more extreme than the population. Again, see, e.g. Texas Republicans.
Thank you, Cynthia—I really appreciate this comment! The pattern you're describing in Texas is exactly the pathology one-party dominance produces in states around the country: competition collapses, elections become weaker tools of democratic accountability, and voters lose the ability to see and shape what their own party is doing. It takes different forms in different states, but I agree that the underlying structure is the same. I'm hopeful that if we pass our All-Party Primaries initiative in Massachusetts, the model will spread—and I'm glad to know there are fellow travelers in Texas thinking about how to bring responsible competition back onto the ballot.
I like the idea, but it needs to be combined with ranked choice voting, or you get what may be a disaster in California, where the dozen Democrats wipe each other out and a Democratic state ends up with 2 Republicans on the ballot for governor.
Personally I’m not a fan of ranked choice voting, although I’m aware many people support it. I hope they can be treated as two separate issues.
What are your objections to ranked choice?
Happy to discuss, but not in this particular forum -- I feel like it would be off-topic. Let me know your email and I'll write to you
Great idea! Only, allowing a group as small as 50 persons to endorse a candidate and have it posted on the ballot seems like an invitation to trouble. The endorsements are likely to pile up and many may be from groups which seek to distort the candidate’s real message. The endorsements should be carefully curated so as to avoid abuse. I think that among other things endorsements should be limited to those from organizations with long standing activities in matters of public policy.
Without Ranked Choice, top 2 will most often scenario is three candidates running. Vote-splitting most likely produces one candidate that is popular, and one candidate supported by the minority, creating a scenario in which the debate in the final round is popular ideas vs. unpopular ideas, rather than implementation differences of popular ideas. This is a terrible system of reducing choices for the voters, and I strongly oppose it.
Hi Elaine — Thanks for your comment. Always appreciate being in this conversation with you and working together for Ranked Choice Voting in MA. I agree that adding RCV would improve All-Party Primaries. I want to push back on your broader point, though, because I think the dynamic you're describing is exactly the pathology we suffer from in MA. And it's what our All-Party Primaries initiative is meant to address.
Partisan primaries in a state like MA, where most voters prefer the Democratic Party, tend to produce general elections where only one candidate has a meaningful shot at majority support. We have the fewest contested general elections of any state, and even many contested elections are landslides. As a result MA doesn't get public debates between popular ideas—there's no debate to be had in a pre-determined general election, and only 17% of voters go to the polls in the primary.
Top 2 states like California don't fit that picture on average. They have more competitive general elections than we do, and their contested races are closer. That's what happens when you move the decisive contest to the election where the majority of voters already show up.
You're right that Top 2 alone can sometimes produce vote-splitting dynamics, and I take that concern seriously. But that's precisely why our initiative goes further than California does, by combining Top 2 with aggregate fusion voting. Fusion puts candidates' coalition support on the ballot—voters can see which wing of a coalition they're actually supporting, and candidates can see which constituencies they depend on. That makes both policy differences and electoral viability visible on the ballot. Voters with more legible coalition information will be better positioned to consolidate around viable candidates who represent them well.
The result is an election that's more competitive and more legible at both stages. And I'd ask you to measure any reform against the baseline we're actually starting from in MA: a system that produces almost no real general-election debates between popular ideas at all, and much higher levels of vote splitting in the few open races we get. To fix that you need high turnout, more than one candidate with a meaningful shot at a majority, and legible differences between them. That's what All-Party Primaries will deliver.
RE: " Fusion puts candidates' coalition support on the ballot—voters can see which wing of a coalition they're actually supporting, and candidates can see which constituencies they depend on." - Can you elaborate about this? How does this listing work, how much control does the candidate have over it?
Thanks Steve. Under our initiative, the listing functions as a joint request of the endorsing organization and the candidate. Any organization with 50 registered voters has access to the mechanism, and they choose whether to make endorsements before the primary. If the candidate accepts the endorsement, then it appears on the ballot. The candidate's own political party registration will always appear on the ballot - if you're a registered Democrat, Republican, etc. voters will see that.
So, in the example ballot shown in the piece, you can see that Bella Bonilla is a Democrat who has been endorsed by the Social Democratic Party and the Abundance Party (all fictitious for explanatory use). That means that both the Social Democratic Party and the Abundance Party have endorsed Bonilla through a vote of their executive committee (or any mechanism by which the executive committee delegates that authority in the organization's charter), and Bonilla has indicated to the Secretary of State that she accepts the endorsement. Then voters can see how groups and coalitions are lining up behind the candidates. That effect will be strongest for groups that the voters already know and understand.
I looked more carefully at the sample ballot shown in the piece, all of the "endorsing organizations" are parties, that's fine I guess. I'm guessing you're referring to some mechanism in MA to register a party, and that only parties registered in MA would be listed (and only if everyone agreed). So there won't be random orgs, unions, etc being listed as endorsements? Is this whole mechanism pretty immune to gaming it? I'm just assuming most candidates will have Dem or Rep listed, maybe some Greens or Libertarians or whatever. But won't there be a motivation to come up with more or less fake "parties" so the candidate can have a more interesting endorsement list on the ballot?
Low bar to make a new "minor party" called "designations" in MA. It takes 50 registered voters to create a "political designation" in Massachusetts and change their registration status to that designation. Right now Green Party and Libertarians are designations (among others). There are restrictions (can't use part of the name of a major party and can't be longer than three words) and the SoS has some discretion on it. Candidates need to accept the endorsements.
It’s a low bar, but as you say the signers have to agree to change their personal status to that designation. Can be easily undone later, but still a bit of a public commitment. If this whole thing passes it will be interesting to see if there is then a great upsurge in registered parties, including, possibly, some very silly ones.