Neutral Open Primaries: A Real Fix for a Rigged System

Make Primary Elections Fair, Competitive & Entertaining

3 Problems with Our Primaries

Neutral Open Primaries

BTR-Score Voting

3 Problems with Our Primaries

1 - Major parties gain publicity as their nominees sail onto the November ballot with the momentum of victory and a pulse of campaign cash. Third parties and independents miss the publicity, the victories, and the money. Instead, they must petition to be placed on the ballot.

2 - Most districts and states are safe for one of the major parties. Small sets of partisan primary voters decide each election before the general election.

3 - Low turnout. Neutral Open Primaries will give voters actual choices. A greater variety of candidates will make the race more interesting.

Third Parties?

Third parties seldom qualify for state-run primaries. In friendly states, most third parties are too small to benefit, so they nominate candidates in-house and petition onto the ballot.

Our third parties are not small because voters are satisfied with the major parties; they are small because voters fear spoilers. To avoid electing a major party candidate we detest, we will vote for a mediocre major party candidate instead of a good third-party or independent candidate.

Neutral Open Primaries will give third parties a fair chance and a new opportunity to make their case to the public.

Neutral Open Primaries

Blanket Primaries

A blanket primary (aka jungle primary) includes all candidates. Voters choose two or more nominees for the general election.

Candidates

A Neutral Open Primary is a blanket primary that includes the nominees of all political parties plus independents. Four candidates advance to the general election.

Major parties will try to set difficult qualifications to exclude third parties. For fair elections, we cannot allow this.

Independent candidates must petition onto the ballot because they lack the qualifications and responsibilities of a political party.

Parties select their nominees as they see fit. We could hold a traditional party primary before a Neutral Open Primary, but that would require a 3-round election.

Primary Voting options

Traditional Choose 1 voting is better suited for blanket primaries than single-winner elections. Choose 1 will tend to nominate four candidates with distinct platforms.

If we use Choose 1, you will face an interesting decision. Should you vote for your favorite candidate without regard for how others might vote? Do you vote for a preferred candidate in a tight race to be one of the four finalists? Or do you vote to make sure an acceptable major party candidate makes the final round?

To avoid those strategic quandries we may adapt BTR-Score (below). Approval voting works well in primary elections.

Adapting a proportional method might be fairer than Choose 1 voting and avoid the strategic questions above, but it may yield four candidates with less distinct platforms.

Giving each voter four votes would allow block voting. A dominant faction could run four similar candidates and win all four final-round spots.

BTR-Score for the General Election

BTR-Score
is the best voting method for single-winner elections, far superior to Choose 1 voting and Ranked Choice Voting.

BTR-Score is easy; give your favorite candidate a six, the worst a zero. Rate the other candidates in comparison. Ties are OK.

The total score of each candidate seeds a tournament. The top seed goes to the candidate with the highest total score; the candidate with the lowest total score is the bottom seed. The two lowest seeds meet in the first contest of the tournament. The candidate preferred on the most ballots wins. The winner meets the next-lowest seed in the second contest. This continues until the survivor meets the top seed in the last contest, the winner wins the election.

If you gave candidate B a score of 4 and candidate C a score of 2, your vote would go to B when they meet in the tournament. If you rated them equally, your vote would not count because you have no preference between them.

Candidates have a strong incentive to appeal to a wide audience. Divisive candidates may receive low scores. Election campaigns will calm down.

BTR-Score complies with state constitutions that call for the “highest,” “largest,” or “greatest” number of votes or a “plurality” of the votes to win an election.

A New Condorcet Voting Method

A Condorcet method will always elect the candidate who "beats all" other candidates one-on-one. In the unusual race without a beats all candidate, BTR-Score will elect the winner of the single elimination tournament. Ramon Llull discovered the concept in 1299. The Marquis de Condorcet popularized it over 200 years ago.

As a Condorcet method BTR-Score is reliable. We know it will work in a fair and consistent manner; it needs no more testing.

Only three single-winner voting methods have been well tested in American elections. Choose1 voting, Approval voting and Ranked Choice Voting. Choose 1 is unfair to independent and third party candidates and it is prone to spoilers and vote splitting. Approval voting is fair, but it limits voters to approving or rejecting the candidates. Ranked Choice does not eliminate spoilers.

These methods do not guarantee the election of the “beats all” winner.

Incentives for Parties

Both a blanket primary and a BTR-Score final create powerful incentives for parties to nominate candidates with broad appeal.

A Better Voting System

Our current system locks in two-parties that cannot work together. Unlike traditional elections, the combination of a Neutral Open Primary and a BTR-Score final is fair to all parties and candidates. Voters will be in charge.
 

Only a few politicians know about Neutral Open Primaries and BTR-Score.

Please inform your elected officeholders of one or both. It’s easy.