The only purpose of primaries is to whittle down the number of candidates in a political party to one. What if that isn’t done? Then there might be dozens of candidates on the general election ballot.
What’s wrong with that? The typical voter will not make the effort to research each candidate. Therefore, let each party select who they want on the general election ballot. Why should they not have to pay for it?
In any election, the method that gives each voter their best opportunity to choose a candidate is ranked choice voting. The voter ranks each candidate in order of their preference. If no candidate achieves over 50% of the vote, then the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated. This continues until the last two candidates remain. The voter submits one ballot with their rankings; the elimination process continues automatically.
The only reason this is not the method in practice is because the party in control has determined that it would not favor their candidates.
Voters should demand ranked choice voting.
Gerrymandering
What is the purpose of having voting districts? Legislators are supposed to represent their constituents. The number of voters in each voting district should be approximately equal so that each legislator wields the same power.
A political party should not be allowed to pick their voters. There should be a formula to draw each district boundary, based on geography, as follows:
1. Determine how many districts should exist. There are currently 40 State Senate Districts, 120 State House Districts, and 28 Congressional Districts.
2. Divide the state population (currently 24 million) by that number.
3. Identify the centers of geography based on population density.
For example, using the 40 State Senate Districts, there should be 600,000 voters per district. It would be simple to devise a computer program that optimizes the distance each voter lives from 40 geographical points (using the Least-Squares or another optimization method) so that each district has 600,000 voters.
That eliminates all bias. But political parties WANT bias. That makes gerrymandering almost impossible to eliminate.
Outstanding analysis connecting independents to both the Jolly-Graham ticket and gerrymandering risks. The point about using 2024 election data for redistricting really caught my attention—seems like Republicans could be setting themselves up for a backlash if Trump's coalition doesnt turn out for downballot races. I've noticed in local elections here that voter enthusiasm dropps off massively when theres no "marquee" candidate driving turnout. Basing district maps on what might be Trump's peak performance could backfire big tim.
I would have preferred a Graham-Jolly ticket, but I would support a Jolly-Graham ticket. I believe that if Graham had been the Democratic candidate opposing DeSantis, she would have been our governor now.
on Gerrymandering: Besides being totally illegal according to the Florida constitution, there is no new empirical data to base an already redrawn map on during the coming year. We would be forced to use the 2020 Census Data which Desanctimonius already tampered with to redraw the 2020 maps and this would admit that his original redrawn map was INCORRECT! Really? A mistake? Florida Constitution does not allow redrawing maps for the sole purpose of supporting one faction, race or party while disenfranchising another. For you Law & Order fans it's like asking for a new trial without any new evidence! Note to the Judge ----toss this sucker out!!!
I am waiting for Strange Files book from Amazon! It is supposed to arrive TODAY!
Yay! Hope you enjoy!
JC Bruce
Primaries
The only purpose of primaries is to whittle down the number of candidates in a political party to one. What if that isn’t done? Then there might be dozens of candidates on the general election ballot.
What’s wrong with that? The typical voter will not make the effort to research each candidate. Therefore, let each party select who they want on the general election ballot. Why should they not have to pay for it?
In any election, the method that gives each voter their best opportunity to choose a candidate is ranked choice voting. The voter ranks each candidate in order of their preference. If no candidate achieves over 50% of the vote, then the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated. This continues until the last two candidates remain. The voter submits one ballot with their rankings; the elimination process continues automatically.
The only reason this is not the method in practice is because the party in control has determined that it would not favor their candidates.
Voters should demand ranked choice voting.
Gerrymandering
What is the purpose of having voting districts? Legislators are supposed to represent their constituents. The number of voters in each voting district should be approximately equal so that each legislator wields the same power.
A political party should not be allowed to pick their voters. There should be a formula to draw each district boundary, based on geography, as follows:
1. Determine how many districts should exist. There are currently 40 State Senate Districts, 120 State House Districts, and 28 Congressional Districts.
2. Divide the state population (currently 24 million) by that number.
3. Identify the centers of geography based on population density.
For example, using the 40 State Senate Districts, there should be 600,000 voters per district. It would be simple to devise a computer program that optimizes the distance each voter lives from 40 geographical points (using the Least-Squares or another optimization method) so that each district has 600,000 voters.
That eliminates all bias. But political parties WANT bias. That makes gerrymandering almost impossible to eliminate.
Voters should demand this method.
Outstanding analysis connecting independents to both the Jolly-Graham ticket and gerrymandering risks. The point about using 2024 election data for redistricting really caught my attention—seems like Republicans could be setting themselves up for a backlash if Trump's coalition doesnt turn out for downballot races. I've noticed in local elections here that voter enthusiasm dropps off massively when theres no "marquee" candidate driving turnout. Basing district maps on what might be Trump's peak performance could backfire big tim.
I would have preferred a Graham-Jolly ticket, but I would support a Jolly-Graham ticket. I believe that if Graham had been the Democratic candidate opposing DeSantis, she would have been our governor now.
on Gerrymandering: Besides being totally illegal according to the Florida constitution, there is no new empirical data to base an already redrawn map on during the coming year. We would be forced to use the 2020 Census Data which Desanctimonius already tampered with to redraw the 2020 maps and this would admit that his original redrawn map was INCORRECT! Really? A mistake? Florida Constitution does not allow redrawing maps for the sole purpose of supporting one faction, race or party while disenfranchising another. For you Law & Order fans it's like asking for a new trial without any new evidence! Note to the Judge ----toss this sucker out!!!
Such a ticket would make great sense to me, but I've been wrong before.
People who don't research candidates deserve a Mondomi.
Choose with full wisdom. Feel good policies sunk Euope.
Please issue at least 8 new Peace Prizes for Trump one for each war