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Proposal Details

Proposal ID	1198
Proposal	2024 Platform Amendment - A Political Reform, 1 Electoral reform b - Opposition to Top Two
Presenter	Green Party of California
Floor Manager	Holly Hart
Phase	Closed
Discussion	05/20/2024 - 06/09/2024
Voting	06/10/2024 - 06/16/2024
Result	Adopted
Presens Quorum	30 0.6666
Consens Quorum	40 0.6666 of Yes and No Votes

Background

While the GPUS Electoral Reform platform calls for

proportional representation from multi-seat legislative districts and

ranked-choice voting (RCV) for single-seat, executive office, it does

not explicitly oppose the growing number

attempts to retain single-seat, winner-take all legislative districts

via instituting ‘top-x’ (top two, top four, two five) elections.

“Top-x’ elections undermine attempts to achieve proportional representation

by eliminating minor parties from the general election ballot and

continuing to restrict representation to only one per legislative

district https://ivn.us/posts/why-california-should-learn-from-maine-and-not-alaska-on-electoral-reform.

The current GPUS platform calls for RCV elections for single-seat,

executive office and US Senate. But RCV could be used together with a top four/top five system

to elect these offices, and minor parties like the Green Party would

not be on the general election ballot. In response, this proposal would

add language to support use of RCV in single-seat elections, while

simultaneously retaining the right for all ballot-qualified parties to

place their party’s nominee on the general election ballot in partisan

elections. This proposal would then a add a new section specifically

calling out opposition to top x systems overall.

Proposal

Amend A. Political Reform, 1. Electoral reform (b) by replacing the current text:

"Enact Ranked Choice Voting for chief executive offices like mayor, governor, and president and other single-seat offices including U.S. Senate. Under Ranked Choice Voting, voters can rank candidates in their order of preference (1,2,3, etc.) Ranked Choice Voting ensures that the eventual winner has majority support; and eliminates vote-splitting, allowing voters to express their preferences knowing that supporting their favorite candidate will not inadvertently help their least favored candidate. Ranked Choice Voting thus frees voters from being forced to choose between the lesser of two evils, allows them to vote their hopes, not their fears, and saves public funds by eliminating unnecessary run-off elections.

with the following new text:

Part I:

Enact Ranked Choice Voting for chief executive offices such as mayor, governor, and president and other single-seat offices including U.S. Senate, while retaining the right for all ballot-qualified parties to place their party’s nominee on the general election ballot in partisan elections. Under Ranked Choice Voting, voters can rank candidates in order of preference (1,2,3, etc.). Ranked Choice Voting ensures that the eventual winner has majority support and eliminates vote-splitting, allowing voters to express their preferences knowing that supporting their favorite candidate will not inadvertently help their least favored candidate. Ranked Choice Voting frees voters from being pressured to choose between the lesser of two evils; allows them to vote their hopes, not their fears; and saves public funds by eliminating unnecessary run-off elections."

Part II:

Add new subsection Electoral Reform 1(c) following the above section 1(b) on RCV, to read

Oppose ‘top-x’ (top two/four/five) primary elections for state and federal office, regardless of whether they utilize ranked-choice voting for the general election. Top-x elections are anti-democracy, anti-party, and misdirect voter frustration into counter-productive reform.

Instead of promoting proportional representation, top-x systems restrict representation to only one representative per legislative district. Instead of promoting voter choice, top-x systems eliminate a guaranteed place on the general election ballot for candidates from all ballot-qualified parties, and take away these parties’ right to nominate their own candidates.

Top-x primaries are not suitable to handle large numbers of competitive major party candidates, with competition among candidates of the same major parties that don't actually represent significantly different policies crowding out minor parties with distinct perspectives.

Misleadingly, proponents of top-x primaries call them open primaries. Open primaries are systems that retain party primaries, but allow any voter to choose to vote in a party primary of their choice. Instead of promoting an inclusive multi-party system, top-x systems eliminate party primaries.

Resources

None

References

CONTACTS:
Peggy Koteen and Jared Laiti; pkoteen@aol.com; jared.laiti@gmail.com

Questions about this system?
Contact the Voting Admin.
The Green Party of the United States voting system is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
You can download a copy here.
To independently verify a ranked choice vote, or for information about how that works, go to Jonathan Lundell's Voting Page and upload the ballot file from the ranked choice vote result page. JL's ranked choice module is licensed under an alternate free software license.

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