Primary election

“ After a long and unsatisfactory experience in the United States of the nomination of candidates for public office by conventions of delegates, the people have been rapidly discarding that system within the last few years, replacing it by the institution of primary elections, at which candidates for the subsequent election are selected by direct vote. ”

“ It is contended that Congress has no power to regulate the amount of money that may be expended by a candidate to secure his being named in the primary election; that the power 'to regulate the manner of holding elections,' etc., relates solely to the general elections where Senators or Representatives are finally chosen. Why should 'the manner of holding elections' be so narrowly construed? An election is the choosing of a person by vote to fill a public office. ”

“ Those who desire to be candidates for any public office present their names on nomination papers, each of which must bear the signatures of so many qualified voters—say twenty-five or fifty. The names of the candidates are placed on a ballot, and a primary election is held some time before the regular election. But the details of primary elections differ somewhat from state to state. An open primary is one at which voters are not restricted to the ballot or column of their own party, but may exercise entire freedom of choice among all the names on the primary ballot. ”

“ To secure a fair, untrammeled expression of popular will in the initiatory step of making nominations, a system of primary election laws has been evolved, and now exists in almost every State. The early forms applied where parties voluntarily, in primary elections, made nominations, sometimes of candidates by direct vote, but more often only of delegates to conventions, all under party management and control, subject to such public laws; the later forms are mandatory, requiring all parties to nominate candidates, or delegates, at an official primary election, under public control. ”

“ Months of time and much money are required for a primary campaign. I venture the assertion that many hundreds of candidates for office in this year of grace began their campaigns for election already encumbered by debts incurred in winning their nominations, which brought them only half-way to the goal. Such a burden, with all its connotations of curtailed liberty and shackling obligations, may not be viewed with equanimity. Instead of making office-holding more attractive to the first-rate man, the direct primary multiplies his discouragements. ”

“ The effective voter at the primaries is the one who votes for candidates for all places. He must, however, as a result of his dense political ignorance, vote the way he is told. As usual the most effective force for telling him how to vote is the permanent organization of advisers and directors to the politically ignorant voter. It is that organization which will most often carry the primary election which nominates candidates for most of the offices. ”

“ On the other hand there are some practical objections to the primary as a method of making nominations and a vigorous fight is now being waged to abolish it. A primary means an additional election with all the attendant campaigning and expense. The total vote cast at a primary is often small; hence the candidate who gains the nomination may or may not be the real choice of his party. ”

“ But the principle of representation by the best qualified men of the electorate is not impaired. The establishment of the direct primary makes necessary two campaigns instead of one, necessitates a new equipment of political machinery, and doubles the distraction of the people by the many offices they must fill. They do not yet see that fewer and more responsible offices would bring abler candidates into the [Pg 142] field, that public opinion might be concentrated upon their choosing by delegates in conventions, and on their intelligent election at the polls. ”

“ The plan for depriving the minority of the power to control the selection of public officials, which is now rapidly gaining adherents among the advocates of political reform, is the direct primary. That some such change in our method of nominating candidates is necessary to make the so-called popular election of public officials anything more than an empty form is apparent to any intelligent student of American politics. ”

“ Primaries were primaries in name only, and were so conducted as to strengthen the power of the bosses. In Chicago a campaign to purify the primaries had been carried on by the political committee of the Civic Federation. The Federation, of which its organizer, Ralph M. Easley, was the secretary, now enlarged its scope in the political field and issued a "Call for a National Conference on Practical Primary Election Reform," in the name of some two hundred and fifty of the leading men of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and thirty-five cities in between. ”

“ Experience has shown that the load of responsibility placed upon the voters by these new measures was sometimes more than they were willing to bear. The scanty primary votes, and the inattention to some of the referendum and initiative questions put on the ballots, were seized upon as showing that the voter was interested only in men. On the other hand, the ballots of most cities, towns and states were loaded down with long lists of officers to be chosen at each election, so that the “vote for men” was in many cases a vote in the dark. ”

“ The primary electors, instead of losing by the change, would gain a real power of indirect election, whereas the apparent power of direct election which at present they possess is an illusion, the reality having been filched from them by the caucus, which is always in the hands of a ring. A wise arrangement of local institutions on the elective principle would of course be the basis of the system, as it is the indispensable training school of the people in self-government. ”

“ Whereas under the closed primary each voter received a ballot limited to candidates of his own party, as a result of Proposition 198 each voter's primary ballot now lists every candidate regardless of party affiliation and allows the voter to choose freely among them. It remains the case, however, that the candidate of each party who wins the greatest number of votes "is the nominee of that party at the ensuing general election." ”

“ That law goes on to provide that where no candidate 'receives a majority of the votes cast, a runoff primary or election shall be held, between the two candidates receiving the highest number of votes,' and the candidate who receives 'a majority of the votes cast in such runoff' shall be declared the winner. ”

“ But whenever public interest flags,—and it is bound to flag under such an absurd multiplication of elections and under such a complication of electoral machinery,—the politicians can easily nominate their own candidates. Up to date no method has been devised which would prevent them from using their personal followers in the primary elections of both parties; and no such method can be devised without enforcing some comparatively fixed distinction between a Republican and a Democrat, and thus increasing the difficulties of independent voting. ”

“ If the State governments would repeal the confused primary and election laws which are now upon the statute books and each State would enact a primary and election law somewhat in accord with the foregoing plan, it would save much time and money which is being wasted by electors and taxpayers and would greatly reduce the danger of demagogues and encourage the selection of much better public officials. ”

“ I'm goin' to propose a bill for the next session of the legislature repealin' this dangerous law, and leavin' the primaries entirely to the organizations themselves, as they used to be. Then will return the good old times, when our district leaders could have nice comfortable primary elections at some place selected by themselves and let in only men that they approved of as good Democrats. Who is a better judge of the Democracy of a man who offers his vote than the leader of the district? Who is better equipped to keep out undesirable voters? ”

“ An examination of the figures throughout the entire state will show that the voters in nearly all districts took less interest in direct primary elections for nominations than they were accustomed to take under the old convention system and that the controlling power is still being exercised by the organization, but now acting in secret and utterly irresponsible. ”

“ The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case. ”

“ It is matter of common knowledge that the great mass of the American electorate is grouped into political parties, to one or the other of which voters adhere with tenacity, due to their divergent views on questions of public policy, their interest, their environment, and various other influences, sentimental and historical. So strong with the great majority of voters are party associations, so potent the party slogan, so effective the party organization, that the likelihood of a candidate succeeding in an election without a party nomination is practically negligible. ”

“ Our wards and precincts should be made smaller, so that people can vote without violence, without wasting an entire day, so that the honest business man that wishes to cast his ballot for the Government of his choice can walk to the polls like a gentleman and deposit his vote and go about his affairs. Allow me to say that unless some such plan is adopted in the United States, there never will be another fair election in this country. ”

“ It is calculated that the effect of forty per cent of the second ballotings is to prevent the election of the candidate obtaining originally the largest number of votes. The arrangement operates to the advantage principally of the National Liberals, the Radicals, and other essentially moderate parties, and to the disadvantage especially of the Social Democrats. ”

“ Objections to Direct Primaries are made that few voters take the trouble to vote at them, and that the choice of candidates is very limited and is still controlled by party leaders. They are also very expensive for a candidate, especially if he is not backed by these leaders. To stand any chance of nomination a candidate has to canvass the voters and make himself known to them. A poor man cannot afford to enter a contest in a direct primary unless funds are supplied him or unless he expects to recoup himself later at the public expense. ”

“ It was clearly, however, in the contemplation of the framers of the Constitution that such an exigency might arise, and provision was wisely made for it. The freedom of the ballot is a condition of our national life, and no power vested in Congress or in the Executive to secure or perpetuate it should remain unused upon occasion. The people of all the Congressional districts have an equal interest that the election in each shall truly express the views and wishes of a majority of the qualified electors residing within it. ”

“ The average voter not infrequently supports his party at all elections, without regard for the merits of the candidates. He is often a Republican or a Democrat, without any clear idea of the different principles of [Pg 89] the two parties. Or he may have become a Republican or a Democrat because he agreed with the party in regard to some National question. So he follows it blindly in State and city elections, which have nothing to do with National questions. It is seldom that important issues of party principles are involved in a local election ”

“ The new mode of trying elections, if it be found effectual, will diffuse its consequences further than seems yet to be foreseen. It is, I believe, generally considered as advantageous only to those who claim seats in parliament; but, if to choose representatives be one of the most valuable rights of Englishmen, every voter must consider that law as adding to his happiness, which makes his suffrage efficacious; since it was vain to choose, while the election could be controlled by any other power. ”

“ Flam had surveyed the whole field of contest, and had arrived at an accuracy of information in regard to the vote of each State—and, indeed, of almost every county in the Union—that, to the unstudied in such matters, would appear to be miraculous—very little short of the gift of prophecy. It is astonishing to see what proficiency an old and practiced politician arrives at in predicting, months beforehand, the precise majorities of the Democratic party over all other parties, in every election, and especially in settling the result of a Presidential election. ”

“ The primary is an advance on the secret caucus with its choice of men for the highest office by a few partisan politicians only, whose business it is to keep party lines strong and to make them carry their candidate into office. The primary, however, we see, is a very expensive method and open to many dangers, and progressive students of political methods are not satisfied with it. Why can we not move, and strongly, for preferential voting? ”

“ Nowadays it is the regular rule that in each State the voting for the presidential electors takes place not in separate districts, but in the mass and by “general ticket,” and these presidential electors make up the college called upon to choose the President of the Union. The candidate who gets a majority even of a few hundred votes in the hundreds of thousands of voters in any State — as was once the case at New York — gets the whole vote of that State. Thus at every election it is a majority of States rather than a majority of voters which decides the victory. ”