Text 24121, 125 rader
Skriven 2006-10-30 06:25:17 av John Hull (1:123/789.0)
     Kommentar till en text av Alan Hess
Ärende: parties pay for primaries?
==================================
First of all, he's talking about going BACK to only voting in the primary for
the party you are registered for.  That's the way it used to be back when I
started to vote.  Why should Democrats get a voice in choosing who is on the
Republican ticket, and vice versa?

As for the parties paying for the primaries, that's a bad idea.  ALL elections
should be run and paid for under public auspices.  The chances of corruption
are much lower.  I also agree that ballots should only be in English.

Alan Hess -> all wrote:
 AH> What do you think of this man's ideas?  I don't agree with everything in
 AH> his column, but he does seem to have a point WRT to taxpayers funding
 AH> primaries.  Assuming there's no Constitutional mandate that primaries be
 AH> paid for by taxpayers, should the parties run the primaries?  BTW, in
 AH> Maryland primaries, one can only vote for candidates in the party with
 AH> which you are affiliated, and, as he says, unaffiliated voters cannot
 AH> vote in the primaries.

 AH> Voting related aside - Due to the governor's suggestion to use absentee
 AH> ballots rather than the voting machines (a position later echoed by his
 AH> opponent, there may be a problem with getting enough absentee ballots to
 AH> meet the demand in some jurisdictions (mine hasn't come yet.)  Diebold
 AH> provides the absentee ballots for Maryland, and they didn't expect such
 AH> a demand (not surprisingly), but they say they will get enough printed
 AH> (Maryland has 42 different ballots - I didn't know we had that many.  I
 AH> knew each jurisdiction has a unique ballot due to local races and
 AH> initiatives, but there aren't 42 jurisdictions here.  Some ballots are
 AH> in different languages - I don't know which, other than Spanish - which
 AH> I don't think should happen, but, until English is made our official
 AH> language, people who don't speak English will get non-English ballots.)

 AH> *******

 AH>
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.primaries29oct29,0,365428
 AH> 6.story?coll=bal-pe-opinion

 AH>  From the Baltimore Sun
 AH> Let the parties pay for primaries


 AH> By Dave Reich

 AH> October 29, 2006

 AH> Feeling betrayed by the original party of my choice, I became an
 AH> "unaffiliated" voter several years ago, adding my small contribution to
 AH> the message of "a pox on both your houses" that many had sent before me.

 AH> Because I am not a member of a party, I cannot vote in Maryland's
 AH> primary elections. This suits me just fine.

 AH> What does not sit well with me is that I - and hundreds of thousands of
 AH> Marylanders like me - still have to pay for government-run primary
 AH> elections.

 AH> I would suggest that party primaries be just that: party primaries,
 AH> which would be totally financed and run by the political parties. The
 AH> public at large should not have to pay for them and should have no say
 AH> in how they are run. It should be entirely up to the party how they come
 AH> up with their candidates to run in the general election.

 AH> Let's say the Democrats want to run their primary on the second Monday
 AH> in July from sunup to sundown, requiring no voter ID, holding the vote
 AH> in homeless shelters, while Republicans want to run theirs on every
 AH> Wednesday in April from 6 to 9 a.m., requiring three forms of voter ID,
 AH> with voting in gun clubs.

 AH> Well, why not? It should be nobody else's business, anymore than the
 AH> Elks should have a say in how and when the Lions hold their elections.
 AH> And why should the Rotary Club have to contribute to either of their
 AH> processes? The point is that the integrity of the system by which any
 AH> party brings its candidates to the general election need only satisfy
 AH> its own members, and the cost and monitoring of that process should rest
 AH> entirely on their shoulders.

 AH> As for the general election, while it must continue to be financed by
 AH> the general public at both national and state levels, there are changes
 AH> needed there as well.

 AH> First, there must be some uniform, universally applied form of voter ID
 AH> instituted. The claptrap suggesting that requiring ID somehow overly
 AH> burdens the poor and elderly is insulting nonsense designed to
 AH> accommodate the indolent and irresponsible. If voting is such a precious
 AH> right, then keeping track of one's voter ID card should not be too much
 AH> to ask.

 AH> Second, the myriad and muddled maze of campaign finance laws and rules
 AH> serves only to encourage, and thereby ensure, corruption and
 AH> obfuscation, and should be abandoned. There need be virtually no
 AH> restrictions or limitations on campaign contributions - only full, clear
 AH> disclosure of their source.

 AH> Finally, since not everyone can have a holiday for Election Day, no one
 AH> should have one. Government and municipal employees have always had
 AH> unfair representation and effect on elections because they, more than
 AH> any other group, are usually given the day off. This, of course, would
 AH> move polling places out of schools, which should be kept in session. We
 AH> instead could use church halls, VFW halls, bingo halls, reception halls
 AH> and the like.

 AH> If, as a practical matter, we must keep voting in schools, then teachers
 AH> and administrators should not be given a day off, and because they would
 AH> still be paid and not teaching that day, they should be charged with the
 AH> responsibility of running the polling places. This would give us a large
 AH> number of qualified workers who would be able to understand any method
 AH> of voting that would be thrown at them. And because Maryland still has
 AH> its ridiculous mandatory-volunteerism requirement for high school
 AH> graduation, students could also help in the endeavor and get credit for
it.

 AH> But first things first: Let's fix the primaries. Making primary
 AH> elections totally private affairs of the parties would leave our boards
 AH> of elections only one election per cycle to concentrate on - and screw up.

 AH> Dave Reich lives in Perry Hall.

 AH> Copyright + 2006, The Baltimore Sun | Get Sun home delivery

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