The mission of the Oregon Voter Rights Coalition is to restore public ownership and oversight of elections, and to ensure the fundamental right of every American citizen to vote and to have each vote counted as intended in a secure, transparent, impartial, and independently verified election process.
Oregon Can Do Better than an Open Primary -- Here's How
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 08/15/2006 - 8:37pm.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Grattan Kerans
http://tinyurl.com/kb5gf
The failure of the open-primary initiative to qualify for the November ballot provides an opportunity to advance genuine election reform in Oregon.
For those mourning its loss, the open-primary initiative was fatally flawed: It would have violated the constitutionally protected right of association. Beyond that, an open primary would have made campaigns longer by turning primary elections into de facto first general elections, pitting every candidate against every other to determine the top two spots in each race in a second general election. The open primary would have driven up costs and eliminated under-funded minor party and independent candidates in the first general election, leaving only the top two candidates for the November ballot. An open primary would have strengthened the influence of political action committees by making the election season longer and more costly.
We can do better.
So what should genuine election reforms include? I propose these:
Instant runoff voting: This reform would eliminate the winner-take-all election process we now have, which produces plurality (rather than majority) winners and voter discontent. Actually, this reform would provide a two-fer: Under instant runoff voting, voters get to rank candidates from first to last for each office in order of their preference (without needing to be concerned about "wasting" a vote on a "spoiler" candidate), and the result is a winner in each race with a majority of the votes cast.
Reduce (or eliminate) PAC power: Three ways are available to attack the overwhelming power of political action committees in Salem: Increase the value of the tax credit for political contributions; re-establish the dollar checkoff on the Oregon income tax to strengthen every political party; and, of course, the reform we really need most, public campaign financing or voter-owned elections (as opposed to the PAC-owned elections we now have).
Shorten the campaign season: Move the state's primary election to the second Monday in September and move the filing day from March to June. This also would aid a movement to annual sessions of the Oregon Legislature. Candidates and parties might not like it, but voters would be pleased. (This also would help reduce the cost of campaigns.)
Fusion voting: This is another way to enhance choice in the process, allowing a voter to cast a first-preference vote. For instance, a vote for the Working Families Party candidate for governor instead of on the Democratic line where the same candidate has also been nominated. That would tell candidates and the parties a lot about what voters want.
What would all these reforms produce? It puts voters at the center of elections and PACs on the sidelines. A majority-vote winner emerges in every contest by tallying first-, second- or third-preference votes. Voters support their first choice in each race and at the same time make a statement about their political beliefs. Minor-party and independent candidates get a real shot at winning.
The outcome would be empowered voters driving the process, instead of what we have now.
Grattan Kerans, a Democrat now living in Salem, served in the Oregon Legislature from 1975 to 1993.
